The history of dance theory has never been told. Writers in every age
have theorized prescriptively, according to their own needs and ideals,
and theorists themselves having continually asserted the lack of any
pre-existing dance theory. Dance Theory: Source Readings from Two
Millenia of Western Dance revives and reintegrates dance theory as a
field of historical dance studies, presenting a coherent reading of the
interaction of theory and practice during two millennia of dance
history. In fifty-five selected readings with explanatory text, this
book follows the various constructions of dance theories as they have
morphed and evolved in time, from ancient Greece to the twenty-first
century.
Dance Theory is a collection of source readings that, commensurate
with current teaching practice, foregrounds dance and performance theory
in its presentation of western dance forms. Divided into nine chapters
organized chronologically by historical era and predominant intellectual
and artistic currents, the book presents a history of an idea from one
generation to another. Each chapter contains introductions that not only
provide context and significance for the individual source readings, but
also create narrative threads that link different chapters and time
periods. Based entirely on primary sources, the book makes no claim to
cite every source, but rather, in connecting the dots between
significant high points, it attempts to trace a coherent and fair
narrative of the evolution of dance theory as a concept in Western
culture.
