 Trade In this Item for up to £0.40
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in I Put a Spell on You: Dancing Women from Salome to Madonna for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.40, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Review
'MUST READ - read this and strut your stuff.' Tatler 'Buonaventura's theatrical flourish never deserts her. The breadth of her knowledge is apparent in every gem of an anecdote.' Daily Telegraph 'Fascinating.' The Big Issue 'Brilliantly researched and utterly absorbing.' Venue 'Truly fascinating ... this is a riveting read even for newcomers to dance.' Decode 'Dancing is sexy and subversive. If you can't get onto a dance floor, read Buonaventura's book, which is the next best thing.' Joan Smith 'Engaging and informative and deliciously opinionated. The most enjoyable dance lesson Wendy Buonaventura's readers will ever have had.' Irma Kurtz
Product Description
Women with pizzazz. Dances to shock and enchant. With heroines like Josephine Baker and Isadora Duncan, this was never going to be a conventional history. Buonaventura's book is rich with fascinating anecdotes (like the New Jersey girl arrested for dancing the Turkey Trot on her lunch hour) and astonishing facts (the first geisha were men), as well as tender portrayals of dancers whose stage antics have earned them lasting fame. The author takes us to Buenos Aires and the first immigrants dancing the tango; to Paris and the bawdy entertainers of the Moulin Rouge; to Chicago and New York, where struggling black Americans cakewalk, charleston and shimmy their long road from slavery. She returns to the Middle East, and the Arabic dance that led to a life-long fascination with the dancing body. On the way, she takes in Princess Diana, anorexia, transvestism and cosmetic surgery. This is a book for anyone intrigued by the sublime, sexy and downright surreal ways we find to strut our stuff.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
extract from Daily Telegraph review (London)by JUSTINE PICARDIE:
'Buonaventura's theatrical flourish never deserts her in her bravura leaps through history. This is a book that can be enjoyed by a wider audience than dance fans, and the breadth of her research is evident in every gem of an anecdote...Buonaventura knows dance to be "a language beyond words"; but she has somehow translated it so that the story of how we move reveals also what moves us.'
extract from Venue Magazine by LESLEY BARNES:
'Brilliantly researched and utterly absorbing...The real meat of this book comes when Buonaventura addresses the plight of the working-class dancers looked down on by polite society...Fascinating too is the way she traces the relationship between dance and women's clothing,which has in turn liberated and entrapped them...I know it's a book to which I'll return time and again.'
'Buonaventura's theatrical flourish never deserts her in her bravura leaps through history. This is a book that can be enjoyed by a wider audience than dance fans, and the breadth of her research is evident in every gem of an anecdote...Buonaventura knows dance to be "a language beyond words"; but she has somehow translated it so that the story of how we move reveals also what moves us.'
extract from Venue Magazine by LESLEY BARNES:
'Brilliantly researched and utterly absorbing...The real meat of this book comes when Buonaventura addresses the plight of the working-class dancers looked down on by polite society...Fascinating too is the way she traces the relationship between dance and women's clothing,which has in turn liberated and entrapped them...I know it's a book to which I'll return time and again.'
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
a great romp through a history of dance from a feminist perspective. Easy to read, and full of information. Gave me a great perspective on the history of popular dance styles, and made me realise just how popular dance has been through the last few centuries. My only problem with this book is that a lot of her facts and figures are unsubstantiated, and some of the more mind-boggling ones just don't stand up to even the most basic research. Some of the more flamboyant claims (in Buenos Aries in 1914 there were 10,000 men to every 1 woman?) and even some which are a matter of opinion (Josephine Baker had 'heavy thighs'?) make me wonder about some of the other claims which she uses to support her arguments.
This said, its still a good book, and has given me a better view of this part of history.
This said, its still a good book, and has given me a better view of this part of history.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
This book was recommended to me for some research I was doing. Being a man, and not a dancer, it wasn't the sort of book I'd normally pick up. But it was absolutely un-put-downable. I especially liked the accounts of how working class women - ordinary women in different cultures - have empowered themselves socially through performing. Well worth buying and guaranteed to keep you awake into the early hours.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
