The candid and provocative autobiography of the first black superstar of American dance. Voices of those who have known and worked with her through the years are interwoven with Jamison's own to make Dancing Spirit a vivid portrait of a life lived without a moment's waste. 45 photos.

"Dancing Transnational Feminisms brings together reflections and critical responses about the embodied creative practices that have been part of the work of Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT), a Twin Cities-based dance company of women of color who work at the intersections of artistic excellence and social justice. Focusing on ADT's creative processes and organizational strategies, the book highlights how women and femme artists of color, working with a marginalized movement aesthetic, claim and transform the spaces of contemporary concert dance into sites of empowerment, resistance, and knowledge production. Blending essays with epistolary texts, interviews and poems, the collection's contributors offer up a multigenre exploration of how dance and other artistic undertakings can be intersectionally reimagined. Building on more than fifteen years of collaborative dance-making and sustained dialogues, Dancing Transnational Feminisms delves into timely questions surrounding race and performance, art and politics, global and local inequities and the responsibilities of artists towards the communities they come from"--

Challenging conventional understandings of time and memory, Christopher T. Nelson examines how contemporary Okinawans have contested, appropriated, and transformed the burdens and possibilities of the past. Nelson explores the work of a circle of Okinawan storytellers, ethnographers, musicians, and dancers deeply engaged with the legacies of a brutal Japanese colonial era, the almost unimaginable devastation of the Pacific War, and a long American military occupation that still casts its shadow over the islands. The ethnographic research that Nelson conducted in Okinawa in the late 1990s—and his broader effort to understand Okinawans’ critical and creative struggles—was inspired by his first visit to the islands in 1985 as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Nelson analyzes the practices of specific performers, showing how memories are recalled, bodies remade, and actions rethought as Okinawans work through fragments of the past in order to reconstruct the fabric of everyday life. Artists such as the popular Okinawan actor and storyteller Fujiki Hayato weave together genres including Japanese stand-up comedy, Okinawan celebratory rituals, and ethnographic studies of war memory, encouraging their audiences to imagine other ways to live in the modern world. Nelson looks at the efforts of performers and activists to wrest the Okinawan past from romantic representations of idyllic rural life in the Japanese media and reactionary appropriations of traditional values by conservative politicians. In his consideration of eisā, the traditional dance for the dead, Nelson finds a practice that reaches beyond the expected boundaries of mourning and commemoration, as the living and the dead come together to create a moment in which a new world might be built from the ruins of the old.

Holly and Heather share their story and help to walk the reader through the painful yet necessary healing process for when life deals us its harshest blows. Dancing on my ashes soothes and empathizes with the broken heart, while sharing the truth of scripture, and the hope that comes from the heart of God.

On dance and culture

This poetic and uplifting picture book illustrated by the #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator of We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines follows a young girl born with cerebral palsy as she pursues her dream of becoming a dancer. Like many young girls, Eva longs to dance. But unlike many would-be dancers, Eva has cerebral palsy. She doesn’t know what dance looks like for someone who uses a wheelchair. Then Eva learns of a place that has created a class for dancers of all abilities. Her first movements in the studio are tentative, but with the encouragement of her instructor and fellow students, Eva becomes more confident. Eva knows she’s found a place where she belongs. At last her dream of dancing has come true.

The celebrated author offers her thoughts on a broad range of subjects, including literary criticism, the state of science fiction writing today, and government and governmental policies.

There is something about you brighter than the sun and more mysterious than the night sky. Who are you when you are not thinking yourself into existence? What is ultimately behind the set of eyes reading these words? In Emptiness Dancing, Adyashanti invites you to wake up to the essence of what you are, through the natural and spontaneous opening of the mind, heart, and body that holds the secret to happiness and liberation. From the first stages of realization to its evolutionary implications, Adyashanti shares a treasure trove of insights into the challenges of the inner life, offering lucid, down-to-earth advice on topics ranging from the ego, illusion, and spiritual addiction to compassion, letting go, the eternal now, and more. Whether you read each chapter in succession or begin on any page you feel inspired to turn to, you will find in Adyashanti's wisdom an understanding and ever-ready guide to the full wonder of your infinite self-nature.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year From a genuine hero of the American short story comes a luminous collection that reveals the seams of hurt, courage, and tenderness that run through the bedrock of contemporary American life. In these fourteen stories, Dubus depicts ordinary men and women confronting injury and loneliness, the lack of love and the terror of actually having it. Out of his characters' struggles and small failures--and their unexpected moments of redemption--Dubus creates fiction that bears comparison to the short story's greatest creators--Chekhov, Raymond Carver, Flannery O'Connor.