On May 4, 1968, Dancer's Image crossed the finish line at Churchill Downs to win the 94th Kentucky Derby. Yet the jubilation ended three days later for the owner, the jockey and the trainers who propelled the celebrated thoroughbred to victory. Amid a firestorm of controversy, Dancer's Image was disqualified after blood tests revealed the presence of a widely used anti-inflammatory drug with a dubious legal status. Over forty years later, questions still linger over the origins of the substance and the turmoil it created. Veteran turfwriter and noted equine law expert Milt Toby gives the first in-depth look at the only disqualification in Derby history and how the Run for the Roses was changed forever.
"If dance itself is a way of making ideas both visual and visceral, Deborah Jowitt has discovered a literary voice in Time and the Dancing Image in which nineteenth- and twentieth-century thought, in its relation to theatrical dancing, becomes sensuous."--Sally Banes, Cornell University "The most vivid and immediately accessible serious dance book ever written. Anyone from a neophyte to an aficionado will be challenged, enlightened and delighted by Jowitt's clever juxtapositions."--Allen Robertson, Dance Editor, Time Out, London "In this brilliant book Deborah Jowitt has given us a fresh approach to dance history and criticism. Instead of seeing dance in the usual way--isolated in a windowless room, with mirrored walls--she looks to the society in which dance evolved. Using the ideas of contemporary artists and thinkers, she illuminates changing tastes--from the elegant, ethereal sylphs of the 1830s to the agonized characters in the dances today. For her reader, Ms. Jowitt opens both the eyes and the mind to the wonders of a many-faceted art."--Selma Jeanne Cohen, Editor, International Encyclopedia of Dance
After an extraordinary career in dance - as a performer, choreographer, and teacher - Daniel Nagrin has now written an extraordinary book. In it he explores the roots of his aesthetic philosophy, influenced by Stanislavski, Helen Tamiris, Joseph Chaikin and the Open Theatre, and his work on and off Broadway as an actor and dancer.Dance and the Specific Image includes over one hundred improvisational structures that Nagrin created with his new company, the Workgroup, and has taught in dance classes and workshops all over the United States. Designed primarily for dancers, many can be adapted for actors and even musicians.In the 1960s, at a time when many modern dancers were working with movement as abstraction, Nagrin turned instead toward movement as metaphor. His passionate belief that dance must speak of people led him to found the Workgroup, a small company of dancers who, in the early 1970s, devoted themselves to the practice and performance of improvisation.Nagrin invites the reader into the mind of a dancer totally absorbed in his art, one who writes with wisdom and authority about what it means to be an artist.
A stunning celebration of movement and dance in hundreds of breathtaking photographs by the creative team behind NYC Dance Project. The Art of Movement is an exquisite collection of photographs by well-known dance photographers Ken Browar and Deborah Ory that capture the movement, flow, energy, and grace of many of the most accomplished dancers in the world. Featured are more than 70 dancers from companies including American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Abraham in Motion, and many more. Accompanying the photographs are intimate and inspiring words from the dancers, as well as from choreographers and artistic directors on what dance means to them.
Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures is the first monograph dedicated to the pivotal work of African American choreographer and video artist Blondell Cummings. The book accompanies an exhibition of the same name co-organized by the Getty Research Institute and Art + Practice, on view at Art + Practice in Los Angeles from September 18, 2021 through February 19, 2022.A foundational figure in dance, Cummings bridged postmodern dance experimentation and Black cultural traditions. Through her unique movement vocabulary, which she called "moving pictures," Cummings combined the visual imagery of photography and the kinetic energy of movement in order to explore the emotional details of daily rituals and the intimacy of Black home life. In her most well-known work Chicken Soup (1981), Cummings remembered the family kitchen as a basis for her choreography; the dance was designated an American Masterpiece by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2006. This book draws from Cummings's personal archive and includes performance ephemera and numerous images from digitized recordings of Cummings's performances and dance films; newly commissioned essays by Samada Aranke, Thomas F. DeFrantz, and Tara Aisha Willis; remembrances by Marjani Forté-Saunders, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Meredith Monk, Elizabeth Streb, Edisa Weeks, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar; a 1995 interview with Cummings by Veta Goler; and transcripts from Cummings's appearances at Jacob's Pillow and the Wexner Center for the Arts. Bringing together reprints, an extended biography, a chronology of her work, rarely seen documentation, and new research, this book begins to contextualize Cummings's practice at the intersection of dance, moving image, and art histories.
Over the past 40 years, Lois Greenfield has earned a reputation as one of the world's most accomplished and respected photographers of human motion. Her images of dancers in mid-flight or mid-movement are astonishingly beautiful and capture the magic of dance in a unique way. In the 17 years since her last book was published, Greenfield has moved into digital colour photography, and some 150 of these breathtaking images are reproduced in Moving Still. They reflect her collaboration with leading contemporary dancers, many of whom perform with international touring companies. The book reunites Greenfield with the distinguished writer and curator William A. Ewing, her enduring champion across the decades and author of her two previous monographs, who provides an illuminating introduction as well as an interview with the photographer about her recent work. The extended captions by Greenfield provide fascinating insights into the creative process. Divided into four picture sections, the free-flowing, rhythmic design of the book does justice to the majestic beauty of Greenfield's photographs.
Photographer Susan Michael’s Dancers in Motion is a collection of breath taking images that showcase the essence of the dancer’s gesture. The artist has combined her love of visual storytelling and the compelling subject to produce studying visual images, by capturing the beauty of the physical body in motion. When she photographs dancers she captures their movement and tension. This book will teach the reader how to direct and work with dancers. It will give you practical advice on your workspace and the equipment needed to get the most out of every dance session. The posing examples provided will spark the reader’s creativity and passion for photographing dancers and give you ideas for working with dance schools as well as advanced dancers. This book answers questions and enthuse the reader into working and producing images in the field of dance photography.
Award-Winning Journalist and Photographer Hal Banfield brings this photographic series to life in the pages of his first published book capturing the grace, beauty, and strength of black dancers in motion. I Am Dance: Words and Images of the Black Dancer shines a spotlight on dancers from the concert to the commercial world of dance, and infuses stories from dancers, in their own words, about the space they hold in the world of dance, what dance means to them primarily and what being a dancer of color represents to them, especially. I Am Dance is an intimate encounter with dancers that will leave you not with just beautiful images to behold, but will also share with you a love and appreciation for the art of dance, with insight into the talent, passion, heart and revelations of dancers of color.
Dancers After Dark is an amazing celebration of the human body and the human spirit, as dancers, photographed nude and at night, strike poses of fearless beauty. Without a permit or a plan, Jordan Matter led hundreds of the most exciting dancers in the world out of their comfort zones—not to mention their clothes—to explore the most compelling reaches of beauty and the human form. After all the risk and daring, the result is extraordinary: 300 dancers, 400 locations, more than 150 stunning photographs. And no clothes, no arrests, no regrets. Each image highlights the amazing abilities of these artists—and presents a core message to the reader: Say yes rather than no, and embrace the risks and opportunities that life presents.
