Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin.
Bharatanatyam is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. The dance form is also briefly mentioned in Kannada text Manasollasa written by Someshwara III. It has flourished in the temples and courts of southern India since ancient times. It is one of the eight widely recognized Indian classical dance forms, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism, collectively Hinduism.
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies in which motion or form or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who creates choreographies by practising the art of choreography, a process known as choreographing. It most commonly refers to dance choreography.
Maya Deren was a Ukrainian-born American experimental filmmaker and important promoter of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer.
Kathakali is a major form of classical Indian dance. It is a "story play" genre of art, but one distinguished by the elaborately colourful make-up, costumes and face masks that the traditionally male actor-dancers wear. It is native to the Malayalam-speaking southwestern region of Kerala and is almost entirely practiced and appreciated by Malayali people.
Agnes George de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer.
The history of dance is difficult to access because dance does not often leave behind clearly identifiable physical artifacts that last over millennia, such as stone tools, hunting implements or cave paintings. It is not possible to identify with exact precision when dance became part of human culture.
Alessandra Ferri is an Italian prima ballerina. She danced with the Royal Ballet (1980–1984), American Ballet Theatre (1985–2007) and La Scala Theatre Ballet (1992–2007) and as an international guest artist, before temporally retiring on 10 August 2007, aged 44, then returning in 2013. She was eventually granted the rank of prima ballerina assoluta.
Ceremonial dancing has a very important place in the Indigenous cultures of Australia. They vary from place to place, but most ceremonies combine dance, song, rituals and often elaborate body decorations and costumes. The different body paintings indicate the type of ceremony being performed. They play an important role in marriage ceremonies, in the education of Indigenous children, as well as story telling and oral history. The term corroboree is commonly used to refer to Australian Aboriginal dances, although this term has its origins among the people of the Sydney region. In some places, Aboriginal people perform corroborees for tourists. In the latter part of the 20th century the influence of Indigenous Australian dance traditions has been seen with the development of concert dance, with the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) providing training in contemporary dance.
E. Patrick Johnson is the incoming dean of the Northwestern University School of Communication. He is the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. He currently serves as the Chair of the African-American Studies Department at Northwestern University and is a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson is the Founding Director of the Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern. His scholarly and artistic contributions focus on Performance Studies, African-American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Dame Catherine Margaret Mary Scott, was a South African-born pioneering ballet dancer who found fame as a teacher, choreographer, and school administrator in Australia. As the first director of the Australian Ballet School, she is recognised as one of the founders of the strong ballet tradition of her adopted country.
The Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS) was a professional organization for dance historians in the United States and internationally. Founded in 1978, it became a non-profit in 1983. SDHS became a member of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1996, hosted an annual conference, published conference proceedings and a book series, and presented awards to new and established scholars. In 2017 it merged with the Congress on Research in Dance to form the Dance Studies Association (DSA).
The de la Torre Bueno Prize is an annual award offered by the Dance Studies Association for the best book published in English in the field of dance studies. The award honors José Rollin de la Torre Bueno, the first university press editor to develop a dance studies titles list. The award of $1000 recognizes exemplary scholarship and important contributions to the field.
The Selma Jeanne Cohen Award is a writing award offered by the Dance Studies Association (DSA) for the best graduate student paper submission to the annual conference. Prior to the DSA's foundation in 2017, the award was sponsored by the Society of Dance History Scholars. The award was established in 1995 to honor Selma Jeanne Cohen's contributions to the field of dance history, and to encourage and recognize exemplary scholarship among students researching dance. The award includes a travel grant and registration fee waiver for the annual conference.
Dance research is the study of dance, including dance history, ethnochoreology, dance theory, dance anthropology, and dance science.
Gabriele Klein is a sociologist, dance theorist and professor at the University of Hamburg.
Diana Meyers is a philosopher working in the philosophy of action and in the philosophy of feminism. Meyers is professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Connecticut.
Graham technique is a modern dance movement style and pedagogy created by American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894–1991). Graham technique has been called the "cornerstone" of American modern dance, and has been taught worldwide. It is widely regarded as the first codified modern dance technique, and strongly influenced the later techniques of Merce Cunningham, Lester Horton, and Paul Taylor.
In dance, floorwork refers to movements performed on the floor. Floorwork is used extensively in modern dance, particularly Graham technique and Hawkins technique, as well as in vernacular breakdancing. Some dance training practices, notably Floor-Barre, consist entirely of floorwork.
Aimee Meredith Cox is an American cultural anthropologist, former dancer, and choreographer.