Sharing the Dance
Contact Improvisation and American Culture
Cynthia J. Novack
New
Directions in Anthropological Writing
George F. Marcus and James Clifford, Series Editors
In Sharing the Dance, Cynthia
Novack considers the development of contact improvisation within
its web of historical, social, and cultural contexts. This book
examines the ways contact improvisers (and their surrounding
communities) encode sexuality, spontaneity, and gender roles,
as well as concepts of the self and society in their dancing.
While focusing on the changing practice of contact improvisation
through two decades of social transformation, Novack’s work incorporates
the history of rock dancing and disco, the modern and experimental
dance movements of Merce Cunningham, Anna Halprin, and Judson
Church, among others, and a variety of other physical activities,
such as martial arts, aerobics, and wrestling.
Cynthia J. Novack is an anthropologist, dancer/ choreographer,
and teacher. She is assistant professor of dance at Wesleyan
College and a member of the Richard Bull Dance Theatre.
Praise
“In her book on contact improvisation and American culture,
Novack finds a good balance between a clear analysis of the movement
itself and a selected history of the cultural context of the
inception of this dance form. . . . Novack has included a chapter
based on her own experience with learning contact improvisation,
which gives her historical writing a kind of self-reflexivity
that is especially important within the field of dance scholarship.”
—Choice
“[Novack’s] detailed descriptions of dancing, learning to
dance, and watching dance provide substantive insights into processes
through which the body is disciplined. Because of its comprehensive
interpretation of dance, Novack’s work should serve as an important
model for future research by all those interested in the body’s
cultural construction.”
—Susan L. Foster, American
Ethnologist
“Cynthia J. Novack is an anthropologist, dancer/choreographer,
and teacher. With striking intelligence and patience, she writes
from all these perspectives in this book.”
—Steve Paxton, Contact Quarterly
“Sharing the Dance is valuable not just for its insights
into the recent history of dance but also for the structures
through which Novack analyses dance as a medium which conveys
cultural meanings and values. . . . A much needed contribution
to dance studies.”
—Burt Ramsay, Music, Theatre,
Dance
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August 1990
LC: 89-040534 GV
280 pp. 6 x 9
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