What does it mean to be able to move? The Aging Body in Dance brings together leading scholars and artists from a range of backgrounds to investigate cultural ideas of movement and beauty, expressiveness and agility.
Contributors focus on Euro-American and Japanese attitudes towards aging and performance, including studies of dancers from Yvonne Rainer, Martha Graham and Anna Halprin to Kazuo Ohno and Kikuo Tomoeda, and directors such as Romeo Castellucci. They draw a fascinating comparison between the youth-oriented Western culture and dance cultures such as that of Japan’s, where aging dancers are celebrated as part of the country’s living heritage.
The first cross-cultural study of its kind, The Aging Body in Dance offers an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners interested in global dance cultures and their differing responses to the world’s aging population.