HISTORY

University Press of Florida 9780813066097 Pub Date: 10/29/2019 $34.95 Discount Code: Short Hardcover Paper over boards 330 Pages Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts BIO005000 9 in H | 6 in W | 0.8 in T | 1.3 lb Wt

La Meri and Her Life in Dance

Performing the World Nancy Lee Chalfa Ruyter

Markup Note: : Rights Available: Translation, Audio, Film and Television

Contact

Milo Brooks Rights@upress.ufl.edu

Summary

This intriguing biography details the life and work of world dance pioneer La Meri (1899–1988). An American dancer, choreographer, teacher, and writer, La Meri was ahead of her time in championing cross-cultural dance performances and education, yet she is almost totally forgotten today. In La Meri and Her Life in Dance, Nancy Ruyter introduces readers to a visionary artist who played a pivotal role in dance history. Born in Texas as Russell Meriwether Hughes, La Meri toured throughout Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and the United States in the 1920s and ’30s, immersing herself in different dance traditions at a time when few American dancers explored styles outside their own. She learned about Indian dance culture from the celebrated Uday Shankar, studied belly dancing with the Moroccan sultan’s top dancer, and took flamenco lessons in Spain. La Meri spread awareness and enjoyment of the world’s myriad forms of expression.

Contributor Bio

Nancy Lee Chalfa Ruyter, former professor of dance at the University of California, Irvine, studied with La Meri in the 1950s. She is the author of Reformers and Visionaries: The Americanization of the Art of Dance and The Cultivation of Body and Mind in Nineteenth-Century American Delsartism.

University Press of Florida 9780813064321 Pub Date: 3/19/2019 $26.95 Discount Code: short Trade Paperback 400 Pages Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts BIO005000 9.3 in H | 6.1 in W | 0.7 in T | 1.3 lb Wt

Dancing in Blackness

A Memoir

Halifu Osumare, Brenda Dixon Gottschild

Markup Note: : Rights Available: Translation, Audio, Film and Television

Contact

Milo Brooks Rights@upress.ufl.edu

Summary

Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award

Dancing in Blackness is a professional dancer's personal journey over four decades, across three continents and 23 countries, and through defining moments in the story of black dance in America. In this memoir, Halifu Osumare reflects on what blackness and dance have meant to her life and international career. Osumare's story begins in 1960s San Francisco amid the Black Arts Movement, black militancy, and hippie counterculture. It was there, she says, that she chose dance as her own revolutionary statement. Osumare describes her experiences as a young black dancer in Europe teaching "jazz ballet" and establishing her own dance company in Copenhagen. Moving to New York City, she danced with the Rod Rodgers Dance Company and took part in integrating the programs at the Lincoln Center.

Contributor Bio

Halifu Osumare, professor emerita of African American and African Studies at the University of California, Davis, is the author of The Hiplife in Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip-Hop.

University Press of Florida 9780813064857 Pub Date: 3/20/2019 $19.95 Discount Code: trade Trade Paperback 216 Pages Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts BIO005000 9 in H | 6 in W | 0.5 in T | 0.7 in Wt

Dancing with Merce Cunningham

Marianne Preger-Simon

Markup Note: : Rights Available: Translation, Audio, Film and Television

Contact

Milo Brooks Rights@upress.ufl.edu

Summary

Dancing with Merce Cunningham is a buoyant, captivating memoir of a talented dancer’s lifelong friendship with one of the choreographic geniuses of our time. Marianne Preger-Simon’s story opens amid the explosion of artistic creativity that followed World War II. While immersed in the vibrant arts scene of postwar Paris during a college year abroad, Preger-Simon was so struck by Merce Cunningham’s unconventional dance style that she joined his classes in New York. She soon became an important member of his brand new dance troupe—and a constant friend. Through her experiences in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Preger-Simon offers a rare account of exactly how Cunningham taught and interacted with his students. She describes the puzzled reactions of audiences to the novel non-narrative choreography of the company’s debut performances. She touches on Cunningham’s quicksilver temperament—lamenting his early frustrations with obscurity and the discomfort she suspects he endured.

Contributor Bio

Marianne Preger-Simon lives in Whately, Massachusetts. She danced with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in its founding years, from 1950 until 1958. She remained friends with Merce Cunningham until his death in 2009.

University Press of Florida 9780813056258 Pub Date: 3/19/2019 $19.95 Discount Code: trade Trade Paperback 192 Pages Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts BIO005000 9 in H | 6 in W | 0.6 in T | 0.7 lb Wt

Broadway, Balanchine, and Beyond

A Memoir

Bettijane Sills, Elizabeth McPherson

Markup Note: : Rights Available: Translation, Audio, Film and Television

Contact

Milo Brooks Rights@upress.ufl.edu

Summary

In this memoir of a roller-coaster career on the New York stage, former actor and dancer Bettijane Sills offers a highly personal look at the art and practice of George Balanchine, one of ballet’s greatest choreographers, and the inner workings of his world-renowned company during its golden years. Sills recounts her years as a child actor in television and on Broadway, a career choice largely driven by her mother, and describes her transition into pursuing her true passion: dance. She was a student in Balanchine’s School of American Ballet throughout her childhood and teen years, until her dream was achieved. She was invited to join New York City Ballet in 1961 as a member of the corps de ballet and worked her way up to the level of soloist. Winningly honest and intimate, Sills lets readers peek behind the curtains to see a world that most people have never experienced firsthand. She tells stories of taking classes with Balanchine and dancing in his original casts.

Contributor Bio

Bettijane Sills, is professor of dance at Purchase College, State University of New York. She danced with New York City Ballet from 1961 to 1972, first as a corps member and later as a soloist.

Elizabeth McPherson is associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and coordinator of the BA and MFA in dance at Montclair State University. She is the editor of The Bennington School of the Dance: A History in Writings and Interviews.