Library: Performing Arts by Credo Reference: Dance

General

Dance: Topic Page
The art of precise, expressive, and graceful human movement, traditionally, but not necessarily, performed in accord with musical accompaniment.
Choreography
From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
The art of composing ballet and other theatrical dances. Choreography originally referred only to a dance notation, the lack of which has made precise reconstruction of many ballets difficult.

Ghost Dance: Topic Page
American Indian religious revivalist movement that spread through the Plains Indians and other ethnic groups in the 1890s.

Modern Dance

Rudolf Von Laban (1879-1958)
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
Hungarian dance theoretician. He is known as the leader of modern dance theory. He invented Labanotation, an accurate, detailed system of recording steps and movements.

Martha Graham (1894-1991): Topic Page
Opposed to traditional ballet with its graceful movements, Martha Graham exerted a major influence on the evolution of modern dance by inventing intense, angular movements that seemed to give overt form to the emotions.

Modern Dance: Topic Page
Serious theatrical dance forms that are distinct from both ballet and the show dancing of the musical comedy or variety stage.

Pearl Primus (1919-1994): Topic Page
US dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher who pioneered an awareness and understanding of the African-American tradition in dance.

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927): Topic Page
Dancer, born in San Francisco, California, USA. Disliking traditional dances, in 1898 she began to perform her own free-style of dancing.

Katherine Dunham (1909-2006): Topic Page
Although Dunham is most widely known for her dancing, her direction of her dance troupe, and her choreography, she is well regarded in scholarly circles for her anthropological study of dance.

Tap and Jazz

Fred Astaire (1899-1987): Topic Page
Dancer, singer, choreographer, and actor, born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA

Loie Fuller (1862-1928): Topic Page
Dancer, choreographer, and stage lighting innovator, born in Fullersburg, Illinois, USA.

Gene Kelly (1912-1996)
From The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music
Forever associated with the title song of Singin' in the Rain (1952), in which he did just that with marvellous aplomb, actor, dancer, singer, choreographer and director Kelly was, with Fred Astaire (whom he partnered in Ziegfeld Follies, 1946), the most inventive musical star to make his mark in Hollywood.

Michael Kidd (1915-2007): Topic Page
Choreographer, dancer, and producer-director, born in New York City, New York, USA.

Jerome Robbins (1918-1998): Topic Page
American choreographer and dancer. Robbins began his career dancing in musicals (1937).

Ginger Rogers (1911-1955): Topic Page
US actor, dancer, and singer. She worked from the 1930s to the 1950s, often starring with Fred Astaire in such films as Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936)

Ballet

Ballet: Topic Page
[Ital. ballare=to dance], classic, formalized solo or ensemble dancing of a highly controlled, dramatic nature performed to music.

Bolshoi Ballet: Topic Page
Russian ballet company founded in 1776 and based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. With their mixed repertory of classics and new works, the Bolshoi is noted for its grand scale productions and the dancers' dramatic and eloquent technique.

George Balanchine (1904-1983): Topic Page
American choreographer and ballet dancer, b. St. Petersburg, Russia, as Georgi Balanchivadze.

Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996): Topic Page
American dance and theater executive and writer, born in Rochester, N.Y.

Royal Ballet: Topic Page
Leading British ballet company and school, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London. Until 1956 it was known as the Sadler's Wells Ballet.

Subject Guide

John Hong

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