Investigating Technique

Bales, Melanie & Rebecca Nettl-Fiol (eds.)
The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008
Disclaimer: I firmly believe inquiry into the body to be the most noble of lifetime studies and that the process of learning a physical technique is a brilliant way to get to the heart of your investigations. At [...]

The More You Know, the Better You Can Imagine

Tharp, Twyla
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life: A Practical Guide
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006
“Memories are slippery, like butter, “ a fifth-grader announced at PS 116 in Manhattan. He was reflecting on Hilary Easton’s dance theater piece, It’s All True. As Lincoln Center Institute teaching artists we are endeavoring to layer [...]

A Study in Contrasts

Jones, Bill T.
Elizabeth Zimmer and Susan Quasha, eds.
Body Against Body: The Dance and Other Collaborations of Bill T. Jones & Arnie Zane
Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1989
Dance is often a study in contrasts: finding rhythm in silence, movement defined by stillness, the literal body creating an abstract narrative. The book Body Against Body: The Dance [...]

Last Night on Earth

Jones, Bill T.
Last Night on Earth
New York: Pantheon, 1995
I love Bill T. Jones.
I am dazzled by his technique, his vision, his personal power as it radiates through his regal demeanor. And his talking. I love to hear that man talk. Language pours out of him as words and movement, making literal the phrase “poetic [...]

Dancing on the Shoulders of Giants

Foulkes, Julia L.
Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002
I am regularly asked what kind of dance I “do.” Without missing a beat, I always say I am a modern dancer. It sounds good, but doesn’t actually define the genre for the average Joe-the-Plumber. [...]