Dancing Mind, Minding Dance encompasses a collection of pivotal texts published by scholar and researcher Doug Risner, whose work over the past three decades has emphasized the significance of social relevance and personal resonance in dance education. Drawing upon Risner’s breakthrough research and visionary scholarship, the book contextualizes critical issues of dance making in the rehearsal process, dance curriculum and pedagogy in 21st-century postsecondary dance education, the role of dance teaching artists in schools and community environments, and dance, gender, and sexual identity, especially the feminization of dance and the marginalization of males who dance. This book concludes with Risner’s prophetic vision for employing reflective practice in order to address social justice and inclusion and humanizing pedagogies in dance and dance education throughout all sectors of dance training and preparation. Beginning with his first book, Stigma and Perseverance in the Lives of Boys Who Dance (2009), Risner has distinguished himself as the leading education researcher, scholar, and practitioner to improve young dancers’ education and training and in humanistic ways. The book will appeal to dance educators and teachers, dance education scholars and researchers, choreographers, parents and care-givers of dance students, and those who work as teaching artists, arts administrators, private sector dance studio directors and teachers, as well as arts education researchers and scholars broadly. The chapters in this book, except for a few, were originally published in various Taylor & Francis journals.

Being-in-time to the music from the ground up is a work in phenomenology, where this term is broadly defined, comprehending Plato, Heidegger, Hegel, and Marx. The most direct referent is Hegel, together with the theoretical revolution that he initiated with Phenomenology of Mind. This text’s more general purpose is to set the tone for a 21st communism based upon the idea of dancing with death, assuming full responsibility for one’s mortality, and abandoning the self to love as the meaning of existence. This dance is choreographed through my conversations with the above mentioned writers. In conversing with them I aim to displace (if not usurp) them from the throne of honour which is nothing more than the authority borrowed from me. By this I do not intend to deny completely their ‘other to me’ character. However, they exist or even ‘figure’ for me, both in the sense of of ‘count,’ having importance, as those that I read, and by which I read myself. They have borrowed my authority, namely, my own potential to be an author. So ‘reading them is to re-assume that borrowed authority. The life of the reader, to paraphrase Barthes, begins with the death of the author.

The first of its kind, this volume presents research-based fictionalized case studies from experts in the field of dance education, examining theory and practice developed from real-world scenarios that call for ethical decision-making. Dilemmas faced by dance educators in the studio, on stage, in recreation centers and correctional facilities, and on social media are explored, accompanied by activities for humanizing dance pedagogy. These challenges converge from educational policies and mandates developed over the past two decades, including teacher-proof "scripted" curriculum, high-stakes testing, standardization, and methods-centered teacher preparation; difficulties are often perpetuated by those who want to make change happen but do not know how.

Sexuality is a difficult topic for all educators. Dance teachers and educators are not immune to these educational challenges, especially given the large number of children, adolescents, and young adults who pursue dance study and performance. Most troubling is the lack of serious discourse in dance education and the development of educative strategies to promote healthy sexuality and empowered gender identities in proactive ways. This volume, focused on sexuality, gender, and identity in dance education, expands this developing area of study and investigates diverse perspectives from public schools, private sector dance studios and schools, as well as college and university dance programs. By openly bringing issues of sexuality and gender to the forefront of dance education and training, this book straightforwardly addresses critical challenges for engaged educators interested in age appropriate content, theme and costume; the hyper-sexualization of children and adolescents; sexual orientation and homophobia; the hidden curriculum of sexuality and gender; sexual identity; the impact of contemporary culture; and mass media, and sexual exploitation. The original research provides a frank discussion, highlighting practical applications and offering insights and recommendations for today’s educational environment in dance. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Dance Education.

Driven by exacting methods and hard data, this volume reveals gender dynamics within the dance world in the twenty-first century. It provides concrete evidence about how gender impacts the daily lives of dancers, choreographers, directors, educators, and students through surveys, interviews, analyses of data from institutional sources, and action research studies. Dancers, dance artists, and dance scholars from the United States, Australia, and Canada discuss equity in three areas: concert dance, the studio, and higher education. The chapters provide evidence of bias, stereotyping, and other behaviors that are often invisible to those involved, as well as to audiences. The contributors answer incisive questions about the role of gender in various aspects of the field, including physical expression and body image, classroom experiences and pedagogy, and performance and funding opportunities. The findings reveal how inequitable practices combined with societal pressures can create environments that hinder health, happiness, and success. At the same time, they highlight the individuals working to eliminate discrimination and open up new possibilities for expression and achievement in studios, choreography, performance venues, and institutions of higher education. The dance community can strive to eliminate discrimination, but first it must understand the status quo for gender in the dance world. Wendy Oliver, professor of dance at Providence College, is coeditor of Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches. Doug Risner, professor of dance at Wayne State University, is coeditor of Hybrid Lives of Teaching Artists in Dance and Theatre Arts: A Critical Reader. Contributors: Gareth Belling | Karen Bond | Carolyn Hebert | Eliza Larson | Pamela S. Musil | Wendy Oliver | Katherine Polasek | Doug Risner | Emily Roper | Karen Schupp | Jan Van Dyke

A comprehensive survey of historical and contemporary Jewish dance. In Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance, choreographer, dancer, and dance scholar Judith Brin Ingber collects wide-ranging essays and many remarkable photographs to explore the evolution of Jewish dance through two thousand years of Diaspora, in communities of amazing variety and amid changing traditions. Ingber and other eminent scholars consider dancers individually and in community, defining Jewish dance broadly to encompass religious ritual, community folk dance, and choreographed performance. Taken together, this wide range of expression illustrates the vitality, necessity, and continuity of dance in Judaism. This volume combines dancers' own views of their art with scholarly examinations of Jewish dance conducted in Europe, Israel, other Middle East areas, Africa, and the Americas. In seven parts, Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance considers Jewish dance artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; the dance of different Jewish communities, including Hasidic, Yemenite, Kurdish, Ethiopian, and European Jews in many epochs; historical and current Israeli folk dance; and the contrast between Israeli and American modern and post-modern theater dance. Along the way, contributors see dance in ancient texts like the Song of Songs, the Talmud, and Renaissance-era illuminated manuscripts, and plumb oral histories, Holocaust sources, and their own unique views of the subject. A selection of 182 illustrations, including photos, paintings, and film stills, round out this lively volume. Many of the illustrations come from private collections and have never before been published, and they represent such varied sources as a program booklet from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and archival photos from the Israel Government Press Office. Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance threads together unique source material and scholarly examinations by authors from Europe, Israel, and America trained in sociology, anthropology, history, cultural studies, Jewish studies, dance studies, as well as art, theater, and dance criticism. Enthusiasts of dance and performance art and a wide range of university students will enjoy this significant volume.

The book is about good leadership, for leaders to lead by actions and not by words of lies from their mouths. Leaders should be doggedly determined to give the people fair leadership. Nakinostran was struck and devastated by the mercilessly cruelest earthquake disaster. In the aftermath of the earthquake, there were spontaneous nuclear plant meltdowns across the country. The survivors watched helplessly all the nuclear plants melting down like candle waxes. Nakinostran was a well developed nation with greatest leaders seen by the people as only second to God because of their excellent leadership of oneness, love, peace and development and equality, not this fake equality we only let out of our mouths. The people, like any other, seeing the level of devastations, had different personal views, doubts and fears. They saw these devastations as their greatest obstacle to returning to a normal life again. Most of them had lost all hopes in life because of the malignant complications of the wickedest earthquake. Many people said thats it; Nakinostran is finished. But the doggedly determined young president, Henry Rupchang was only angered and bitterly touched at heart by the deaths. He had the courage and determination that the country will rise again. He was undaunted. He mustered what supports he could for the reconstructions of the country. He continuously told his people that nothing is impossible under this cone-shape heaven that umbrellaed our earth. His commitment was undiminished and despite the devastations, he unflinchingly told them the nation will rise again. All the leaders in the country bust the gut to reconstruct the country and with unity they worked as a people, though not without some distractions from some protesters. The leaders didnt lost a second in their sleepdid the president succeedas in the end, it was a heartwarming people.

Short plays for children, easily acted by young amateurs and intended for a young audience.