This all-inclusive guide to the art of creating dance moves and routines, written by the advisor and former dancer of the Martha Graham School and company, contains 247 projects that guide the user through a myriad of topics. Concepts and techniques such as form, sequencing, variation, surrealism, abstract movement, improvisation, ritual and ceremony, space, and floor patterns are examined and explained, encouraging the student to experiment and create with movement.

Choreographing the Curriculum is an essential guide for dance educators. It is intended to transform traditional curriculum design into a collaborative, creative, and impactful experience. This workbook emphasizes the choreographic process, helping both new and experienced teachers build comprehensive dance programs that foster student engagement, creativity, and self-expression. With step-by-step planning tools, inspirational stories, and practical exercises, author Wendy Jones uses her over twenty years of experience in dance education to offer a fresh approach to bridging curriculum with choreography. From foundational lesson planning to exploring movement and collaboration, Choreographing the Curriculum is more than a workbook—it’s a tool kit for cultivating a thriving classroom environment where students and teachers create meaningful, inspiring dances together. Inside, you’ll discover -practical frameworks for unit and lesson planning aligned with dance-making goals -strategies to integrate movement research, choreography, and cultural history -tools for crafting performances that reflect both student voices and curriculum standards -real-life insights from the author’s teaching journey, guiding educators to balance creative ambition with classroom realities Ideal for dance teachers at any level, this workbook equips you to build a program that supports students’ artistic development and leaves them empowered to express themselves. Let Choreographing the Curriculum help you bring artistry, structure, and joy to every dance class.

Balanchine Finds His America provides a close-up of this crucial time in the life of a young immigrant choreographer who would become one of the 20th century's greatest artists. It opens on Balanchine's first day in the United States and closes 13 years later, with the culture's recognition of his importance. Along the way, it sketches in the extreme politics of his time from the Great Depression to WWII, evokes the places that inspired him from New York City to Hollywood, and charts the sexuality of longing that fueled his creative life, but also threatened his and his muses' personal stability. It draws connections between Balanchine's loves and the earliest ballets he made on American soil, especially his mysterious exploration of American romance, Serenade (1933), and his even more mysterious 1946 masterwork, The Four Temperaments, that pointed the way to America's victorious postwar art of abstraction. Most of all, this book highlights the young Balanchine's tragic yet triumphant inner journey towards American-ness, and the impact of this journey on the ballet organizations he helped form and the legacy he left the world.

On Site: Methods for Site-Specific Performance Creation is a practical book for artists and students at all levels who create or are learning to create sited performance based works. Author Stephan Koplowitz covers specific, hands-on strategies for an array of issues to consider before, during, and after embarking upon a project, including site selection, procuring permits, designing the audience experience, researching and exploring a site for inspiration and content, differences in urban and natural environments, definitions of key production roles, building effective collaborations with artists, and techniques to generate site-inspired production elements such as sound/music, costumes, lighting, and media. He also offers helpful chapters on project budgeting, contract negotiation, fundraising, marketing, documentation, and assessment. Based on the author's career spanning over 30 years of site-specific creation, the book also includes the voices of over 24 other artists, producers, and writers who share their perspectives and experiences on the many topics covered. A guide designed to make site work practical, intentional, and attainable, On Site will become a well-worn reference for anyone interested in the creative process and discovering the power of site-specific works.

For fans of the classic novel Ballet Shoes, a coming-of-age dance story reimagined for a new generation. As she begins 6th grade, Lauren Lightfoot wants nothing more than to get her first pair of pointe shoes, enjoy her love for ballet, and spend time with her friends. Lauren and her friends Bryan and Serena are challenged to define themselves both on stage and in the world when they audition for the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and compete for roles in the spring recital.

Aspiring artists—their grit, passion, and determination to achieve—are at the heart of this unforgettable novel. Anna Forester is an intelligent and sensitive sixteen-year-old at the top of her local ballet school in Illinois. She arrives at the bottom of the prestigious School of Ballet New York in Manhattan, where she joins an elite group of teens who see themselves as the ballet stars of the next generation, racing to impress their famous teachers and win a coveted professional contract. Over the next two years, Anna’s struggles to navigate friendships with her rivals, stand out in a world dictated by conformity, and pursue her passions converge into a high-stakes portrait of a young dancer following their dreams.

An enthralling and complex tale about passion and the arts. After graduating from an elite New York ballet school, 18-year-old Anna Forester moves across the country to begin her dance career in Los Angeles. Soon, she is drawn into the circle of her charismatic artistic director and the thrilling aura of company life. Her professional trajectory alienates Anna from her college-age peers, but the ballet community is an intoxicating place where she feels desperate to be accepted. Through Anna's eyes, the dance world comes alive in this unflinchingly honest portrait of a young woman in thrall to an uncompromising art form.

Infinite Steps invites readers into the deeply personal journeys o f thirty-three ballet dancers from around the world, tracing their paths from first pliés to final bows and beyond. Through intimate profiles by writer and dancer Gavin Larsen and stunning photographs by Gene Schiavone, this book reveals the physical demands and quiet triumphs that define a life in ballet. Each chapter offers a glimpse into a dancer's inner world, illuminating the realities behind the moments portrayed by the images.

Inspiring, revealing, and deeply relatable, Being a Ballerina is a firsthand look at the realities of life as a professional ballet dancer. Through episodes from her own career, Gavin Larsen describes the forces that drive a person to study dance; the daily balance that dancers navigate between hardship and joy; and the dancer’s continual quest to discover who they are as a person and as an artist.

Championing living women dance artists- a coloring book that is creative, meditative and educational.

Teaching and Learning Dance Through Meaningful Gestures explores how technique is a philosophy and a theory, and how the body is an instrument for expression. Teaching in three languages - Spanish, English, and Italian —has had a profound effect on me: I have found clear explanations, metaphors, and stories that communicate my approach to training. I have written this book to foster dialogue and community between the three cultures that I have been a part of, to share the knowledge and experience I've gained over the past 35 years, and to advocate for thoughtful dance training. This book will serve current and future dancers and teachers as they continue to train and explore the professional world of dance. It is my hope that my experiences can guide young dancers as they embark on their own journeys. Lenzu has written for various dance and arts magazines and in 2013 published her first book, Unveiling Motion and Emotion, which contains writings in Spanish and English on the importance of dance, community, choreography, and dance pedagogy.

Exploring the importance of dance, community, choreography and dance pedagogy, Argentinean Choreographer Anabella Lenzu celebrates 20 years of teaching dance in a book of her writings in Spanish and English. Having opened her own dance school at 18, Lenzu recounts her experiences teaching in South America, Europe, and the US, as well as publishing an arts magazine and creating repertory for her dance company. Lenzu's eloquent prose reveals reflections of a life devoted to dance performance and education. Photography by Todd Carroll fully documents the performances and provides a glimpse into the creative process. This book is an inspiration to dancers and teachers alike, and the first of its kind as a bilingual text on dance pedagogy.

From defining dreams to crafting strategies, Choreographing Your Dance Career is a unique and comprehensive resource for dancers, choreographers, directors, and educators in any genre or career stage. Written from the perspective of an experienced mentor, Janaea Rose Lyn guides you through the intricacies and challenges of personal and professional development. The overall focus is holistic, balancing career advice with approaches for enhanced physical and mental well-being. Artwork by Laura Higgins Palmer celebrates the spirit of dance. Practical, encouraging, and engaging, this handbook blends information, examples, and exercises with stories from the author’s life, providing the tools and guidance necessary for choreographing the career that only you can dance!

In this memoir of a roller-coaster career on the New York stage, former actor and dancer Bettijane Sills offers a highly personal look at the art and practice of George Balanchine, one of ballet’s greatest choreographers, and the inner workings of his world-renowned company during its golden years. Sills recounts her years as a child actor in television and on Broadway, a career choice largely driven by her mother, and describes her transition into pursuing her true passion: dance. She was a student in Balanchine’s School of American Ballet throughout her childhood and teen years, until her dream was achieved. She was invited to join New York City Ballet in 1961 as a member of the corps de ballet and worked her way up to the level of soloist. Winningly honest and intimate, Sills lets readers peek behind the curtains to see a world that most people have never experienced firsthand. She tells stories of taking classes with Balanchine, dancing in the original casts of some of his most iconic productions, working with a number of the company’s most famous dancers, and participating in the company’s first Soviet Union tour during the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis. She walks us through her years in New York City Ballet first as a member of the corps de ballet, then a soloist dancing some principal roles, finally as one of the “older” dancers teaching her roles to newcomers while being encouraged to retire. She reveals the unglamorous parts of tour life, jealousy among company members, and Balanchine’s complex relationships with women.

The story of this groundbreaking summer dance program is told through the voices of staff, faculty, and students. Administrative director Mary Josephine Shelly’s previously unpublished writings form a key summary of eight of the nine summer sessions. The Bennington School of the Dance held classes from 1934 through 1942 at Bennington College in Vermont, with one summer spent at Mills College in California. Its effects were far-reaching in the development and dissemination of modern dance as an original American art form. The school produced unique choreographic works by teachers in residence: Martha Graham, Hanya Holm, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Leading choreographers of the later 20th century such as Merce Cunningham, Anna Halprin, José Limón, Alwin Nikolais and Anna Sokolow participated at the school. The largest portion of students were high school and college level teachers who would spread modern dance across the country and abroad.

Embracing dramatic similarities, glaring disjunctions, and striking innovations, this book explores the history and context of dance on the land we know today as the United States of America. Designed for weekly use in dance history courses, it traces dance in the USA as it broke traditional forms, crossed genres, provoked social and political change, and drove cultural exchange and collision. The authors put a particular focus on those whose voices have been silenced, unacknowledged, and/or uncredited – exploring racial prejudice and injustice, intersectional feminism, protest movements, and economic conditions, as well as demonstrating how socio-political issues and movements affect and are affected by dance. In looking at concert dance, vernacular dance, ritual dance, and the convergence of these forms, the chapters acknowledge the richness of dance in today’s USA and the strong foundations on which it stands.

Biography of the life and career of Hemsley Winfield, actor, director, choreographer, dancer and creator of the first African American Modern Dance Company.

An annotated bibliography of Hemsley Winfield's life and career. Includes 511 annotations of Winfield's life and career plus images of programs, letters, and other materials.

What do ballerinas and blossoms have in common? Grace, resilience, and the power to inspire. Welcome to Ballerina Garden—a lyrical celebration of movement and nature. Step into a whimsical world where flowers and ballerinas share the spotlight. Petals pirouette and dance blooms alongside heartfelt reflections and dreamlike imagery. From resilience and self-expression to community and joy, these pages invite young dancers to reflect on their journey. With gentle themes of growth, self-care, and artistic identity.