Dancing Modernism / Performing Politics

Book excerpt: "... almost every page offers provocative commentary on the aesthetics and politics of modern dance." -- Signs "... [an] important step... in the ineluctable dance by postmodern historians across a bridge that spans the gaps among disciplines, between theory and practice, and betweeen present and past." -- Theatre Journal "This complex and important book needs to be read by anyone interested in dance history or the cultural politics of dance." -- Dance Theatre Journal "Mark Franko's Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics is challenging, groundbreaking, insightful, and, I believe, an important contribution to the field of dance scholarship." -- Dance Research Journal A revisionary account of the evolution of "modern dance" in which Mark Franko calls for a historicization of aesthetics that considers the often-ignored political dimension of expressive action. Includes an appendix of articles of left-wing dance theory, which flourished during the 1930s.