Making Ballet American : Modernism before and Beyond Balanchine (Oxford Studies in Dance Theory)

Harris, Andrea

Oxford University Press Inc（2017/11発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 284 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780199342235
• DDC分類 792.80973

Full Description

George Balanchine's arrival in the United States in 1933, it is widely thought, changed the course of ballet history by creating a bold and original neoclassical style that is celebrated as the first successful American manifestation of the art form. This book intervenes in the prevailing historical narrative and rebalances Balanchine's role in dance history by revealing the complex social, cultural, and political forces that actually shaped the construction of American neoclassical ballet. Situating American ballet within a larger context of literary, musical, arts, and dance modernisms, Making Ballet American examines a series of critical efforts to craft new, modernist ideas about the relevance of classical dancing for the country's society and democracy. The book's unique structure interweaves chapters focused on cultural and intellectual histories of ballet production and discourse with close examinations of three Americana ballets spanning the Depression, World War II, and Cold War eras. Through this blend of cultural and choreographic analysis, Making Ballet American illustrates the evolution of modernist ballet theory and practice during a turbulent historical period. Ultimately, the book argues that the Americanization of Balanchine's neoclassicism was not the inevitable outcome of his immigration or his creative genius, but rather a far more complicated story that spans several authors and continents and that pivots on the question of modern art's relationship to American society and the larger world.

Contents

Introduction
1. Modernism and American Ballet
Interchapter 1. Americana Ballet I: Billy the Kid
2. Lincoln Kirstein's Social Modernism and the Cultural Front
Interchapter 2. Americana Ballet II: Rodeo
3. Edwin Denby's Objectivist Modernism and the New York School
Interchapter 3. Americana Ballet III: Western Symphony
4. The Making of an American Ballet Institution in Europe in the Cultural Cold War
Conclusion: "We drink the health of the guy that died."
Bibliography
Index