Moving Music: Dialogues with Music in Twentieth Century Ballet

What are the relations between music and ballet? How can they be understood? What do they show? In Moving Music, Stephanie Jordan explores these questions in depth.

In Part 1, a broad overview of different musical concepts in twentieth century dance, including those of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Doris Humphrey and Merce Cunningham, is followed by a closer look at the work of choreographers such as Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Leonide Massine, Fyodor Lopukhov and Serge Lifar. Using ideas drawn from recent dance theory and musicology, Jordan then proposes a new way of understanding musical-choreographic meanings and of analysing the style and structure from which they arise.

In Part 2, Jordan goes on to apply this framework to the works of George Balanchine, Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor, highlighting the characteristics of their individual musical-choreographic styles, and selecting specific works to analyze in depth. Moving Music is both a survey of existing ideas and a source of groundbreaking new work, and will prove invaluable for analysts, reconstructors, performers, and historians of dance and music alike. Illustrated with numerous examples, and with a focus that ranges from broad cultural and theoretical questions to detailed examinations of dance and music structures, Moving Music is set to become an essential text in the field.