Choreography & Narrative: Ballet's Staging of Story and Desire
An impressive work of scholarship, this elegantly staged study by the author of Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary Dance (Univ. of California, 1986) "uses the concept of a culturally constructed, historically specific body to cut across disciplinary boundaries such as those of medical history, physical education, the practices of fashion, etiquette and comportment, and the science and art of representing the passions in order to elucidate pervasive values toward the body and the changes in these values over time." Using 18th-century Paris as a focal point, Foster casts her eye over the dance conventions and innovations of that time through early 19th-century romanticism. Descriptions and analyses of specific ballets are offered as interludes between the main chapters of the study. Copious notes and a formidable bibliography of general and primary sources complete the presentation. Not for the casual dance fan, this weighty tome will find a home in academic dance and performing arts collections.?Carolyn M. Mulac, ChicagoCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.