The Serpentine Career of Loïe Fuller
Rising from the ranks of touring comedies and Wild West shows, the American dancer dreamed of a future of light, movement, and metamorphosis.
Martha Graham’s Night Journey
Reinterpreting the Greek tragedy, Graham built a choreography of dramatic, angular movements to embody the female experience, past and present.
The Bossa Nova Craze
In the early 1960s, bossa nova was hugely popular in the US thanks to its reinvention as a social dance and its connections with upper-class culture.
What is Dance Activism?
An aesthetic of resistance and a form of protest against racist ideologies, dance activism has become a meaningful part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Dance Marathons
In the early twentieth century, dance marathons were an entire industry—and a surprisingly hazardous business.
How South Asian Temple Dancers Fought Moral Reform
Devadāsīs appealed to a longstanding tradition to argue that they had a legitimate position in their modernizing nation.
How Women Singers Subverted Tango’s Masculinity
In the hands of performers known as cancionistas, the genre known for its machismo was transformed.
Yvonne Rainer, Postmodern Dance, and You
In the 1960s, a group of artists started experimenting with choreography based on ordinary movement and improvisation. Now your living room is the stage.
Indian Classical Dance and the Power of “Oneness”
Kathak is a classical form of Indian dance. Its practitioners use movement and gesture to tell stories, transcending gender and selfhood.
The Rhythms of Shaker Dance Marked the Shakers as “Other”
The name Shaker originally comes from the insult “Shaking Quakers,” which mocked the sect’s use of their bodies in worship.