Description: Taking a fresh and innovative approach to dance history, Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage examines Western dance -- from the Romantic ballet to modern dance -- from a feminist perspective. Renowned critic and historian Sally Banes brings nuance and complexity to a wide range of representations of gender, departing from the common positions that stress either the victimization or celebration of women.

Combining close readings of performances with analysis of the sociopolitical and cultural context of specific dances, Banes opens up dynamic new ways of seeing the female body on stage. She untangles various strands of performance, including choreographic structure and style and gaps between plot and performance. She uncovers the pervasive "marriage plot" and a wide range of women's images -- including brides, mistresses, mothers, sisters, witches, wraiths, enchanted princesses, peasants, revolutionaries, cowgirls, scientists and athletes -- and she shows that representations of women in dance are integrally connected to society's complex negotiations of gender. Brilliantly argued, Dancing Women reveals female dancing bodies as far more than a simple reflection of our everyday ideas about gender.

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