Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture (New Directions in Anthropological Writing)

Praise for Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture (New Directions in Anthropological Writing)

“In her book on contact improvisation and American culture, Novack finds a good balance between a clear analysis of the movement itself and a selected history of the cultural context of the inception of this dance form.  . . .  Novack has included a chapter based on her own experience with learning contact improvisation, which gives her historical writing a kind of self-reflexivity that is especially important within the field of dance scholarship.”—Choice

“Cynthia J. Novack is an anthropologist, dancer/choreographer, and teacher.  With striking intelligence and patience, she writes from all these perspectives in this book.”—Steve Paxton, Contact Quarterly

“Sharing the Dance is valuable not just for its insights into the recent history of dance but also for the structures through which Novack analyses dance as a medium which conveys cultural meanings and values. . . . A much needed contribution to dance studies.”—Burt Ramsay, Music, Theatre, Dance

 “[Novack’s] detailed descriptions of dancing, learning to dance, and watching dance provide substantive insights into processes through which the body is disciplined.  Because of its comprehensive interpretation of dance, Novack’s work should serve as an important model for future research by all those interested in the body’s cultural construction.”—Susan L. Foster, American Ethnologist