Summer Reads
It is part 3 of a series: Weird Music (formerly named Beethoven's Skull ), Weird Theater (formerly named Shakespeare's Ear ), and now, Weird Dance (originally titled Isadora Duncan's Neck ).
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dancers’ Group put out a call for our members to share what they’re reading, listening to, and learning from. Below is a wide-ranging collection of these recommendations .
ODC.DANCE/STORIES By: Marie Tollon and guests
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES: WHAT THEY FEEL HOW THEY COMMUNICATE By: Peter Wohlleben
S hort articles and essays about dance in the Bay Area featuring local and visiting artists. —Recommended by: Fran Jamison, Senior Marketing Manager at ODC
—Recommended by: Abigail Keyes
This book tells a Secret Story of Life, Death and Regeneration. Recommended by: Lisa Townsend
CLASS ACT By: Cholly Atkins & Jacqui Malone
EMERGENT STRATEGY By: adrienne maree brown
PLEASURE ACTIVISM By: adrienne maree brown
THE GARDEN OF EVENING MISTS By: Tan Twan Eng
There aren’t many detailed accounts of tap danc- ers and our history. This one is colorful and reads like the author speaks. It feels like he’s sharing anecdotes with you. —Recommended by: Gregg Geoffroy
Artists are creative problem solvers. This book validates our relationship to creativity and strat- egizes how to make more possibilities and build more resilience, instead of feeling resource scarce. —Recommended by: Yayoi Kambara
Pleasure Activism is the book that comes after brown's publishing of Emergent Strategy, which is also a phenomenal text. Pleasure Activism centers the voices of various Black femmes / folks, both living and who have passed (Audre Lorde amongst others); each voice sharing a specific approach to re-centering joy, pleasure, and the erotic within and outside of their personal lives and mandating that the erotic re-enter current activist/non-profit/ grassroots organizations, movements, and adja- cent spaces as a critical driving force; the erotic as alchemist. I'm still reading it, but so far the writing weaves between the poetic, theoretical, narrative/story- telling, interview mode, and there is surely some- MAKING DANCES THAT MATTER: RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY CREATIVITY By: Anna Halprin with Rachel Kaplan Offers a blueprint for how to use dance in commu- nities, for both healing and social change. Full of scores that readers can easily adapt to work with different groups. An inspiring summation of Anna Halprin's teachings. —Recommended by: Sue Heinemann thing inside of the book for everyone. —Recommended by: randy reyes
Amid "the stillness of the mountains" and "the depth of the silence," a story slowly unfolds. Very, very slowly. A beautifully written book of historic fiction set in Malaya right after World War II filled with memory, beauty, sadness, and the ugly of the effects of war. The reader learns about existential gardening concepts such as shakkei, "borrowed scenery"; that "every aspect of gardening is a form of deception." —Recommended by: Nancy Karp, Artistic Director/Nancy Karp + Dancers
FOOTPRINTS OF THE DANCE: AN EARLY SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY DANCE MASTER'S NOTEBOOK By: Jennifer Neville
HOW TO DO NOTHING: RESISTING THE ATTENTION ECONOMY By: Jenny Odell
This first analysis of the recently-found notebook is a fascinating read because it gives us the never-before seen glimpse into the daily life of a dancing master in the 17th century. Jennifer Neville's interpretations are insightful but she also gives the best description of the history of dance that I've ever read. By refer- encing information from her vast research into the area, Jennifer illuminates a connective thread that reaches all the way into the present day. It is inspir- ing, well-researched, thorough, and full of detail that transports the reader into another time. And the bib- liography alone is worth the price of the book for any serious dance researcher. —Recommended by: Jennifer A Meller, Direc- tor of Creative Development, New York Baroque Dance Company THE CYCLE: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO MANAGING ARTS ORGANIZATIONS By: Michael M. Kaiser and Brett E. Egan Good insight into long range programming and potentially offers 'refreshers'. Recommended by: Shannon Preto, Lenora Lee Dance Company Manager
Many dance artists are responding to the "atten- tion economy" of social media and reality televi- sion. Some of us run in the opposite direction trying to create IRL experiences nostalgic for a pre-technological world. Others dive into pop and tech and like like like with deconstruction and criti- cal analysis. And some dancers just wanna have fun, where pleasure is subversive and admittedly we and the vast majority of our audiences have a smartphone in our purse or pocket and multiple social media accounts. This is a book that sup- ports our questioning of the attention economy and gives us frameworks for creating better worlds. —Recommended by: Keith Hennessy Many dancers will remember Halifu as a mover and shaker in the Oakland dance community in the 1970s and 80’s. It’s fun to read about those times, and the book is a memoir of an amazing life in dance as well as an important history of black dance in America. Most moving and reveal- ing for me; it is a personal telling of the experi- ence of being a black dancer during the past 50 years. —Recommended by: Ruth Botchan, Director of Berkeley Moving Arts and The Ruth Botchan Dance Company DANCING IN BLACKNESS By: Halifu Osumar
EXIT WEST By: Mohsin Hamid
Profoundly intimate and inventive, this contempo- rary work tells a story of love, loyalty, and courage of a couple escaping from a violent civil war in their home country. It is both of our time and for all time past and sadly the future. Well written. —Recommended by: Nancy Karp, Artistic Director/Nancy Karp + Dancers
CAN WE ALL BE FEMINISTS? By: June Eric-Udorie, Editor
This anthology has a focus on intersectionality and forward momentum for feminism. It made me think. It taught me something. It asked hard questions. —Recommended by: Jo Kreiter, Choreographer/ Site Artist
ART AND INTIMACY: HOW THE ARTS BEGAN By Ellen Dissanayake
FIND SPACE, CREATE HIGHLIGHTING VENUES & STUDIO SPACE AROUND THE BAY AREA
I enjoyed this book because she speaks about art through the lens of human development, particu- larly the dance of infancy which is what we teach at Luna workshops. —Recommended by: Patricia Reedy, Executive Director, Creativity & Pedagogy, Luna Dance Institute WEIRD DANCE: CURIOUS AND BIZARRE DANCING TRIVIA By: Tim Rayborn and Abigail Keyes Weird Dance is an entertaining and sometimes macabre look at the stranger tales of dance his- tory, starting with early man and tracing strange stories through to the 20th century. I admit that my partner and I wrote this book together! We intended this book for the casual reader (no foot- notes or endnotes) but we do feel that specialists in the field will enjoy it as well. While it's certainly not a comprehensive history (we focused on antiq- uity, Western Europe, the US, and a little bit in the Middle East—which is my area of expertise), it does illuminate some of the more obscure and possibly overlooked elements of our dancing past, like whatever happened to Mata Hari's head? And why did ballet dancers used to keep their worn out pointe shoes? And who danced at the infamous Suicide Club in Chicago? We also think that dance teachers of junior high and high school-aged stu- dents will appreciate this text for its humor and well-researched irreverence.
JEMELE HILL IS UNBOTHERED (PODCAST) By: Jemele Hill
Jemele Hill, best known from her time at ESPN and her critiques of the current president, is a spitfire that aims to acknowledge the truth around poli- tics, sports, and pop culture. Her podcast does exactly that in an enlightening and insightful way through personal opinion and in-depth interviews with celebrity guests and influencers. Available for streaming on Spotify. —Recommended by: Andréa Spearman, Dance Maker/Arts Administrator/Opinion Haver
Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA): Castellano Playhouse MACLA is an inclusive contemporary arts space grounded in the Chicano/ Latino experience that incubates new visual, literary and performance art in order to engage people in civic dialogue and community transformation. The Playhouse is a black box style t heater which is an unadorned performance space equipped with a digital projector and screen, WiFi, and sound system with MP3/auxiliary input. ADA compliant and accessible without stairs. MACLA’s Castellano Playhouse: 4821.25 sq. ft. Rents start at $75 per hour 510 S. 1st Street, San José
Temple Isaiah Social Hall A 1,300 square foot ballroom has vaulted ceilings, tall windows for natural lighting and includes a stage. It can accommodate up to 550 in auditorium seating and 300 people at tables. Also features a new, fully equipped modern kitchen, WiFi, digital projector and screen, and a piano. From the hilltop setting, the outdoor courtyard areas offer views of the Lafayette Reservoir.
MASTERING YOUR INNER CRITIC By: Susan Mackenty Brady
Lots of good insight into confronting self-defeat- ing messages, building stronger relationships, embracing one’s own strength, wisdom, power,
and asking for what you really want. —Recommended by: Sandi Scheuber, Freelance Choreographer
Temple Isaiah Social Hall: Rents start at $600 per day 945 Risa Road, Lafayette
Find these and more spaces for dance at bayareaspaces.org
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in dance JUL/AUG 2019
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