Janez Janša (ed): Theories of contemporary dance

Maska’s Transformacije collection has finally been enriched with a long expected collection of articles Theories of Contemporary Dance. It represents the first book in Slovenian language that deals with the phenomenon of contemporary dance, an art that has marked the 20th century and has in the last two decades also asserted itself remarkably in Slovenia.

The book features 17 articles by worldly acclaimed authors that are theoretically or practically engaged in contemporary dance. Thus you can read the celebrated text by Paul Valery “Philosophy of Dance”, a definition of contemporary dance in a classical study by American critic John Martin, discussions by Bojana Kunst and Randy Martin on the bodies of dance, and by Alain Badiou and Jelica Šumić Riha on dance as a mentality.

Among the authors, there are also the main protagonists of American post-modern dance Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown. Through monographic articles, the works of some of the key choreographers of the second half of the 20th century are thoroughly presented: Merce Cunninham, Pina Bausch and William Forsyth. The book also discusses some important directions in the contemporary dance that have developed in certain environments, such as the American contact improvisation and its attitude towards rock’n’roll and disco, the Japanese butoh and Belgian hyper-dance and its relation to video and new technologies.