Musicology and Dance
Historical and Critical Perspectives

Explores music, gesture and embodiment through the work of composers such as Purcell, Bach, Haydn, Wagner, Debussy, and Mahler.

Davinia Caddy (Edited by), Maribeth Clark (Edited by)

9781108469951, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 June 2022

325 pages, 12 b/w illus. 7 tables 25 music examples
24.4 x 17 x 1.7 cm, 0.523 kg

'The glimpses of live performance directly referenced in Musicology and Dance are not only informative but, dare it be said, entertaining too … [The book] offers many fresh insights into relationships between dance and music.' Jeremy Barlow, Dance Chronicle

Long treated as peripheral to music history, dance has become prominent within musicological research, as a prime and popular subject for an increasing number of books, articles, conference papers and special symposiums. Despite this growing interest, there remains no thorough-going critical examination of the ways in which musicologists might engage with dance, thinking not only about specific repertoires or genres, but about fundamental commonalities between the two, including embodiment, agency, subjectivity and consciousness. This volume begins to fill this gap. Ten chapters illustrate a range of conceptual, historical and interpretive approaches that advance the interdisciplinary study of music and dance. This methodological eclecticism is a defining feature of the volume, integrating insights from critical theory, film and cultural studies, the visual arts, phenomenology, cultural anthropology and literary criticism into the study of music and dance.

Introduction Davinia Caddy and Maribeth Clark
Part I. Conceptual Studies: 1. J. S. Bach and the dance of humankind John Butt
2. Dance as 'other': contrasting modes of musical representation Suzanne Aspden
3. Thinking on our feet: a somatic enquiry into a Haydn minuet Joseph Fort
4. Making moves in reception studies: music, listening and Loie Fuller Davinia Caddy
Part II. Case Histories: 5. The 'splendid and shameful art': dancing in and around the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk Thomas Grey
6. Hymnody, dance and the sacred in the illustrated song Marian Wilson Kimber
7. Pavanes and passepieds in the age of the cancan Carlo Caballero
Part III: Critical Readings: 8. Nijinsky, modernism, repression: the Faune ballet – once again – under analysis David J. Code
9. Choreographing Mahler songs at the centenary Wayne Heisler, Jr
10. Embodied heritage: English country dance in Austen screen adaptations Maribeth Clark.

Subject Areas: Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV], Dance [ASD], Dance & other performing arts [AS]