Lyrical Dance - a dance choreographed to a song about overcoming obstacles. What do you do when all you've ever known about yourself, what gave your life meaning, is wiped away? How do you get it back?All of her life Esther has taken care of others. How can she let others take care of her? Will she ever be herself again? Meanwhile, Kathleen struggles to understand what it is to be a pastor's wife. Who is she now that she's married? Is it possible to grieve over the loss of a dream she didn't even know she had? Book seven of the Dancing through Life Series, Lyrical Dance explores the question of suffering in this life. Why do good people suffer? How do we go on in the face of suffering? Join Esther, Kathleen and other members of the Reese family as they continue to deal with life's challenges and find ways not only to survive, but to thrive.

History and exposition of a classical dance form of Kerala, India.

Contemporary Dance Lighting: The Poetry and the Nitty-Gritty dynamically guides students toward aesthetically, creatively, and skillfully becoming lighting designers for dance in the 21st century. The book is organized in three parts, covering everything from the aesthetic considerations of lighting for dance to the tools and technology designers use to create compelling artistry. Part I, "Beginnings" establishes context, explaining the structure of the book and illuminating the history of contemporary dance and lighting. Part II, "The Poetry" elaborates on the key artistic and aesthetic elements of contemporary dance lighting: visual narrative; controllable functions and qualities of light; use of space, color, and time; importance and intricacies of collaboration; and continual effects and evolution of technology. Part III, "The Nitty-Gritty" steers students through the technical knowledge and skills necessary to design lighting, including understanding your tools and positioning instruments; creating layered light plots; organizing extensive paperwork; and archiving. The dance Artifice, choreographed by Jerry Pearson, is sequentially explored throughout the book to convey key concepts. "Further Reflections" conclude each chapter, written by a diverse group of renowned professionals, inviting young designers directly into the world of lighting design. This textbook is for use in Lighting Design and Design for Dance Lighting courses at the university level, along with professional training programs.

As stories of Indian dance’s renaissance span almost a full century, there has emerged a globally dispersed community of Indian dancers, scholars and audiences who are deeply committed to keeping these traditions alive and experimenting with traditional dance languages to grapple with contemporary themes and issues. Scripting Dance in Contemporary India is an edited volume that contributes to this field of Indian dance studies. The book engages with multiple dance forms of India and their representations. The contributions are eclectic, including writings by both scholars and performers who share their experiential knowledge. There are four sections in the book – section I titled, “Representations’ has three chapters that deal with textual representations and illustrations of dance and dancers, and the significance of those representations in the present. Section II titled, “Histories in Process” consists of two chapters that engage with the historiographies of dance forms and suggest that histories are narratives that are continually created. In the third section, “Negotiations”, the four chapters address the different ways in which dance is embedded in society, and the different ways in which the aesthetics of a form has to negotiate with social, economic and political imperatives. The final section, “Other Voices/ Other Bodies” brings voices which are outside the mainstream of dance as ‘serious’ art.

The Essential Guide to Contemporary Dance Techniques explores the multifaceted learning processes and underlying principles behind the technical skills and abilities of a contemporary dancer. The depth and complexity of this challenging sensorial, intellectual, reflective and creative process is presented with clarity, to support every training dancer in achieving the most from their learning experiences. Insights into three major technical forms: Graham technique, Cunningham technique and Release-based technique, reveal the distinct approaches, processes and experiences possible in contemporary dance training. Essential technical and performance considerations are covered, including: breath; alignment; core activation; connectivity; dynamic qualities of motion; use of the body; use of space; action and finally, relationships to the audience. With personal contributions from respected teachers at top dance institutions, this practical guide offers a unique insight into the expectations and processes of professional training classes as well as the success you can achieve with them. With images from real-life technique classes and dynamic performances, this is an essential companion for all contemporary dance students.

This edited collection examines the potential of dance training for developing socially engaged individuals capable of forging ethical human relations for an ever-changing world and in turn frames dance as a fundamental part of human experience. This volume draws together a range of critical voices to reflect the inclusive potential of dance. The contributions offer perspectives on contemporary dance training in Britain from dance educators, scholars, practitioners and artists. Through examining the politics, values and ethics of learning dance today, this book argues for the need of a re-assessment of the evolving practices in dance training and techniques. Key questions address how the concept of ‘technique’ and associated systems of training in dance could be redefined to enable the collaboration of skills and application of ideas necessary to twenty-first-century dance. The editors present these ideas in different modes of writing. This collection of essays, conversations and manifestos offers a way to explore, debate and grasp the shifting values of contemporary dance. Examining these values in the applied field of dance reveals a complex and contrasting range of ideas, encompassing broad themes including the relationships between individuality and collectivity, rigour and creativity, and virtuosity and inclusivity. This volume points to ethical techniques as providing a way of navigating these contrasting values in dance. It serves as an invaluable resource for academics as well as practitioners and students.

The Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource on recent and contemporary Russian culture and history for students, teachers, and researchers across the disciplines.