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Dance Today: Studies-Notes-Portraits

By (author) Andre Levinson, Translated by John Goodman

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An essential volume in the history of dance and its critical literature The French dance criticism of the Russian Ã©migrÃ© AndrÃ© Levinson (1887â€“1933) set a new standard for the genre by regaling readers with a heady mix of formalist acumen, historical erudition, and aesthetic theory. Dance Today, first published in 1929, is Levinsonâ€™s most important book. An eloquent chronicle of dance performance in Paris from 1923 to 1928, it covers not just ballet, the mainstay of his critical vision, but the full array of the cityâ€™s offerings, from variety show numbers, â€œorientalistâ€ programs, and â€œinterpretiveâ€ modern dance to presentations of the rich indigenous traditions of Spain, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. Levinsonâ€™s celebrated pages on Anna Pavlova, Isadora Duncan, Josephine Baker, and La Argentina are here, together with his often-acerbic assessments of Diaghilevâ€™s Ballets Russes, the Ballets SuÃ©dois, and German modern dance, then dominated by Rudolf Laban and Mary Wigman. This translation, the first unabridged edition in any language since 1929, includes a substantial introduction reframing Levinsonâ€™s French career, annotations that identify obscure works and clarify his many recondite allusions, and, as an appendix, the first English rendering of his pioneering essay on MallarmÃ©â€™s dance writing, which greatly influenced his critical thinking.