The Jerome Robbins Dance Division's annual (Virtual) Dance Research Fellowship Symposium is on Friday, January 29, 2021. Sign up to receive links to the sessions HERE.

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division invites you to join our annual Dance Research Fellowship Symposium on Friday, January 29, 2021 from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST, when this year’s fellows will present on their research around the theme of dance and immigration. The symposium will be entirely virtual this year, and will feature a one-hour lecture from each fellow, with a live chat session for audience members to engage with the presentations. To see the schedule for the symposium and sign up to receive links for the morning and afternoon sessions, please click HERE.

To accompany each of the fellows’ presentations, we offer some book suggestions below from our circulating collection: 

Ninotchka Bennahum
Border Crossings: Encarnación López Júlvez, Léonide Massine: Studies in Transnationalism, Self-Exile, and Art,  1930-1945

Léonide Massine and the 20th Century Ballet by Leslie Norton

This title provides an appreciative and detailed examination of the ballets of Leonide Massine, ranging from his work with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, to American Ballet Theatre.

 

 

 

Massine: A Biography by Vicente García-Márquez

The first major in-depth biography of Leonide Massine, this book features interviews with the artist conducted shortly before his death, and was published posthumously two years after the author’s passing.

 

 

 

Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco by K. Meira Goldberg

Author K. Meira Goldberg offers an insightful analysis of flamenco’s history through the lens of racial identity and Spanish colonialist expansion.

 

 

 

 

Phil Chan
Dreams of the Orient

Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing Between Intention and Impact by Phil Chan

2021 Dance Research Fellow Phil Chan’s first book grapples with issues of race and representation in ballet and offers practical solutions for today’s ballet companies.

 

 

 

Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism by Royona Mitra

Through in-depth analyses of seven of Akram Khan's performances in the twenty-first century, Royona Mitra outlines the artist's exploration of issues around identity, poverty, and belonging through his dances and his practice.

 

 

 

La Bayadère: Ballet en Trois Actes

This DVD of the ballet, to be discussed in the Symposium presentation, features a 2013 performance by Bolshoi Ballet, starring Svetlana Zakharova as Nikiya, ladislav Lantratov as Solor, and Maria Alexandrova as Gamzatti.

 

 

 

Sergey Konaev
Teaching to Survive: Immigrant Female Dance Schools and Classes in the 1930s-1950s (France and USA)

The Three Graces: Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Olga Spessivtzeva; The Legends and the Truth by Serge Lifar

This 1957 book is one of Serge Lifar’s many writings which helped to establish the importance of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes to the development of modern ballet. Lifar made his debut in Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and eventually became the director of the Paris Opera Ballet.

 

 

Bronislava Nijinska: A Dancer's Legacy by Nancy Van Norman Baer

Accompanying a 1986 exhibition devoted to the choreographer and dancer Bronislava Nijinska, this book covers her life and works in both text and images.

 

 

 

Kiri Avelar
Descubriendo Latinx: The Hidden Text in American Modern Dance

José Limón: An Unfinished Memoir, by José Limón

José Limón’s memoir, begun late in life and not completed before his death, covers his early childhood in Mexico, his family’s move to California, and his early career in New York City, before ending in 1942, during his most productive period as an artist.

 

 

 

Martha Graham: Gender and the Haunting of a Dance Pioneer by Victoria Thoms

Drawing on multiple archival sources, author Victoria Thoms reexamines Martha Graham’s legacy through a feminist lens, exploring how gender is revealed and concealed through Graham’s work and writings.

 

 

The Dance Technique of Lester Horton by Marjorie B. Perces

This book provides a detailed guide to the modern dance technique developed by Lester Horton, still taught today, which was influenced by Native American dances as well as an understanding of anatomy.

 

 

 

Doris Humphrey, An Artist First: An Autobiography by Doris Humphrey

In addition to discussing her works, in her autobiography modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey writes of her early career and explorations of new forms of dance, her departure from Denishawn, the company founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, her establishment of the Humphrey-Weidman Company with Charles Weidman, and the development of her dance technique and choreographic aesthetic.

 

 

Yusha-Marie Sorzano & Ferne Louanne Regis 
Investigating Process: An Immigrant Choreographer's Journey to Discovery

Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance by Deborah Jowitt

One of several major biographies on Jerome Robbins, this study brings the focus to his wide ranging work, from Broadway to ballet to film, offering details on the concept and creation of nearly all of his creative output, as well as vivid descriptions of each work.

 

 

 

Rhythm Field: The Dance of Molissa Fenley edited by Ann Murphy and Molissa Fenley

Including a contribution from Fenley herself, this book offers a collection of essays from fellow dancers and choreographers, as well as scholarly analyses of her work, in an attempt to capture Fenley's four decade long career.

 

 

In-Between Dance Cultures: On the Migratory Artistic Identity of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Akram Khan by Guy Cools

Dance dramaturge and scholar Guy Cools examines the work of both Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Akram Khan, two prolific twenty-first century choreographers who produce work from and addressing their identities as artists positioned "in-between" dance cultures. 

 

 

Pam Tanowitz
everything is true

ha-Rikud: The Jewish Dance, by Fred Berk

Authored by Fred Berk, one of the foremost authorities on Jewish dance in the U.S. during the twentieth century, this book provides a short history of Jewish folk dance along with instructions for twenty-five Israeli folk dances.

 

 

 

Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance by Rebecca Rossen

Dancing Jewish transforms the idea of “Jewish dance” to look at what it means to dance as a Jewish person in the U.S., tracing the rich history of contributions of Jewish choreographers and dancers to the field of dance in the U.S.—and the contributions of dance to Jewish history in the country.  

 

 

All books are available through the Library's circulating collection, and can be reserved for pickup at your grab-and-go location of choice.