An intimate portrait of American modern dance and gay life in the 1930s.

In January 1969, just months before the Stonewall Riots, Ted Shawn (1891-1972) wanted to tell a story about how his life, writings, and dances contributed to the rapidly evolving gay liberation movement around him. Shawn died before he was able to put forth a candid account about how he, the "Father of American Dance," was homosexual, but he scrupulously archived his correspondence, diaries, photographs, and motion pictures of his dances, anticipating that the full significance of his choreography would reveal itself in time. Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances tells that story.

First Published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When Men Dance explores the intersection of dance and perceptions of male gender and sexuality across history and different cultural contexts. Chapters tackle the history and dilemmas that revolve around dance and notions of masculinity from a variety of dance studies perspectives, and are accompanied by fascinating personal histories that complement their themes.

Explores the rich history, collections, and significance of the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to the art form of dance. The only museum in the United States dedicated entirely to the art form of dance, the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame opened in June 1987, after a short preview season the summer before. This unique and special place celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2017. To commemorate this milestone, Lisa Schlansker Kolosek has created a rich pictorial history tracing not only the museum’s remarkable evolution but the relevance of the museum to the city of Saratoga Springs, New York. Kolosek tells the story of the museum’s origins, from its notable founders’ grand idea to the selection and complete renovation of a historic 1920s bath house as its home. Combining a complete survey of exhibitions presented by the museum and the incredible history of the Hall of Fame, which recognizes dance luminaries across multiple genres, this book offers an in-depth look at the museum’s expansive collection of costumes, visual art, and archival materials. The book also covers the history of the museum’s Lewis A. Swyer Studios and School of the Arts, a leader in dance education. Beautifully illustrated with more than four hundred photographs, this book pays tribute to the immense impact of the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame. “The book illuminates the history of the museum and its founders’ vision for a national repository dedicated to the ethereal art of dance in all its many genres. Readers will grasp the importance of the museum on the Saratoga Springs region along with its impact on the greater dance world both past and present. A lovely journey for all to read, especially the dance aficionado!” — Andrew DeVries, sculptor “Saratoga Springs is a mythical place for dance: Mr. Balanchine parading down the streets with the New York City Ballet performing street theater, tantalizing Saratoga with glimpses of ballets in a freewheeling, improvisational summer parade. And from there it blossomed: the National Museum of Dance was born, giving us the past through exhibitions, providing space for the creative process today, and training the next generation. Dance, the architecture of time, is celebrated by a colorful cast of characters making time flow in tantalizing stories of a one-of-a-kind place.” — Karole Armitage, choreographer “It has been a privilege and a pleasure to walk through and explore the National Museum of Dance. This museum is always ‘in process,’ reinventing itself in an ever-changing world. Museums are the guardians of our culture, keeping the ideas and creations of the human spirit—body and soul—alive. The National Museum of Dance delights in bringing art and history into the present—into the dance of now!” — Paul Kolnik, photographer

Robert Gottlieb’s immense sampling of the dance literature–by far the largest such project ever attempted–is both inclusive, to the extent that inclusivity is possible when dealing with so vast a field, and personal: the result of decades of reading. It limits itself of material within the experience of today’s general readers, avoiding, for instance, academic historical writing and treatises on technique, its earliest subjects are those nineteenth-century works and choreographers that still resonate with dance lovers today: Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake; Bournonville and Petipa. And, as Gottlieb writes in his introduction, “The twentieth century focuses to a large extent on the achievements and personalities that dominated it–from Pavlova and Nijinsky and Diaghilev to Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, from Ashton and Balanchine and Robbins to Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, from Fonteyn and Farrell and Gelsey Kirkland (“the Judy Garland of Ballet”) to Nureyev and Baryshnikov and Astaire–as well as the critical and reportorial voices, past and present, that carry the most conviction.” In structuring his anthology, Gottlieb explains, he has “tried to help the reader along by arranging its two hundred-plus entries into a coherent groups.” Apart from the sections on major personalities and important critics, there are sections devoted to interviews (Tamara Toumanova, Antoinette Sibley, Mark Morris); profiles (Lincoln Kirstein, Bob Fosse, Olga Spessivtseva); teachers; accounts of the birth of important works from Petrouchka to Apollo to Push Comes to Shove; and the movies (from Arlene Croce and Alastair Macauley on Fred Astaire to director Michael Powell on the making of The Red Shoes). Here are the voices of Cecil Beaton and Irene Castle, Ninette de Valois and Bronislava Nijinska, Maya Plisetskaya and Allegra Kent, Serge Lifar and José Limón, Alicia Markova and Natalia Makarova, Ruth St. Denis and Michel Fokine, Susan Sontag and Jean Renoir. Plus a group of obscure, even eccentric extras, including an account of Pavlova going shopping in London and recipes from Tanaquil LeClerq’s cookbook.” With its huge range of content accompanied by the anthologist’s incisive running commentary, Reading Dance will be a source of pleasure and instruction for anyone who loves dance.