Reading Lists

    • No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century – Nancy Reynolds & Malcolm McCormick

    • Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet – Jennifer Homans

    • The Illustrated Dance Technique of José Limón – Daniel Lewis

    • Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing – Lincoln Kirstein

    • The Dance: From Ritual to Rock – Roger Copeland & Marshall Cohen

    • Dance: A Very Short Introduction – Carol Martin

    • Ballet & Modern Dance: A Concise History – Jack Anderson

    • The Intimate Act of Choreography – Lynne Anne Blom & L. Tarin Chaplin

    • Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance – Susan Leigh Foster

    • The Dancer’s World: A Comprehensive History of Dance – Mary Clarke & Clement Crisp

    • Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement – Gerald Jonas

    • World Dance Cultures: From Ritual to Spectacle – Patricia Leigh Beaman

    • The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen – Melissa Blanco Borelli (ed.)

    • The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics – Rebekah J. Kowal, Gerald Siegmund, Randy Martin (eds.)

    • Dance as a Theatre Art: Source Readings in Dance History from 1581 to the Present – Selma Jeanne Cohen (ed.)

    • What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism – Roger Copeland & Marshall Cohen (eds.)

    • Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance – Eric Franklin

    • Dance Composition – Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard

    • The Dance Experience: Insights into History, Culture, and Creativity – Myron Howard Nadel & Marc Raymond Strauss

    • Dance: Rituals of Experience – Judith Lynne Hanna

    • Dance History: An Introduction – Janet Adshead-Lansdale & June Layson (eds.)

    • Looking at Dance: A Choreological Perspective on Choreography – Valerie Preston-Dunlop

    • The Routledge Dance Studies Reader – Alexandra Carter & Janet O’Shea (eds.)

    • The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment – Mark Franko (ed.)

    • Envisioning Dance on Film and Video – Judy Mitoma (ed.)

    • Margot Fonteyn: Autobiography – Margot Fonteyn

    • Nureyev: The Life – Julie Kavanagh

    • I Was a Dancer – Jacques d’Amboise

    • Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina – Misty Copeland

    • Dancing on My Grave – Gelsey Kirkland with Greg Lawrence

    • Holding On to the Air – Suzanne Farrell with Toni Bentley

    • No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century – Nancy Reynolds & Malcolm McCormick (part memoir-history blend)

    • I Remember Balanchine – Francis Mason (ed.)

    • Catherine Littlefield: A Life in Dance – Sharon Skeel

    • Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey – Alvin Ailey & A. Peter Bailey

    • Blood Memory – Martha Graham

    • Isadora: A Sensational Life – Peter Kurth

    • My Seven Lives – Isadora Duncan

    • Ballet for Life – Ross Stretton

    • Dancing on Water: A Life in Ballet, from the Kirov to the ABT – Elena Tchernichova with Joel Lobenthal

    • The Sparkling World of Michael Bennett – Kevin Winkler

    • A Body of Work: Dancing to the Edge and Back – David Hallberg

    • Cyd Charisse: The Two of Us – Cyd Charisse with James Dodson

    • Balanchine’s Apprentice: From Hollywood to New York and Back – John Clifford

    • Twinkle Toes: My Life in Dance – Fred Astaire (as told in Steps in Time)

    • Gene Kelly: A Life of Dance and Dreams – Alvin Yudkoff

    • A Choreographer’s Story – Agnes de Mille (Dance to the Piper)

    • Boys Dance! (American Ballet Theatre) – John Robert Allman & Luciano Lozano

    • Bunheads – Misty Copeland & Setor Fiadzigbey

    • Firebird – Misty Copeland & Christopher Myers

    • Dancing in the Wings – Debbie Allen & Kadir Nelson

    • Tallulah’s Tutu – Marilyn Singer & Alexandra Boiger

    • Brontorina – James Howe & Randy Cecil

    • I Got the Rhythm – Connie Schofield-Morrison & Frank Morrison

    • Danza!: Amalia Hernández and El Ballet Folklórico de México – Duncan Tonatiuh

    • Jose! Born to Dance: The Story of José Limón – Susanna Reich & Raúl Colón

    • Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova – Laurel Snyder & Julie Morstad

    • Ballerina Dreams: From Orphan to Dancer – Michaela DePrince & Elaine DePrince

    • Ready to Fly: How Sylvia Townsend Became the Bookmobile Ballerina – Lea Lyon & Alexandria LaFaye

    • Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln – Margarita Engle & Rafael López (music/dance arts crossover)

    • Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild

    • Dancing Shoes – Noel Streatfeild

    • To Dance: A Ballerina’s Graphic Novel – Siena Cherson Siegel & Mark Siegel

    • Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina (Young Readers Edition) – Misty Copeland

    • Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson – Leda Schubert & Theodore Taylor III

    • Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina (Young Readers Edition) – Michaela DePrince & Elaine DePrince

    • Dancing Queen – Erin Dionne

    • The Nutcracker in Harlem – T. E. McMorrow & James Ransome

    • The Nutcracker – Susan Jeffers (classic retelling with dance illustrations)

    • The Barefoot Book of Dance Stories – Jane Yolen & Heidi E.Y. Stemple

    • The Boys in the Ballet – Various authors

    • Dance Is for Everyone – Andrea Zuill

    • The Art of Making Dances – Doris Humphrey

    • The Intimate Act of Choreography – Lynne Anne Blom & L. Tarin Chaplin

    • Dance Composition: A Practical Guide for Teachers – Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard

    • Dance Composition Basics – Pamela Anderson Sofras

    • Composing While Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion – Melinda Buckwalter

    • Making Dances: Seven Postmodern Choreographers – Barbara Lloyd (ed.)

    • Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance – Susan Leigh Foster

    • Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism – Sally Banes

    • Choreography: A Basic Approach Using Improvisation – Sandra Cerny Minton

    • Dance and the Specific Image: Improvisation – Daniel Nagrin

    • Dance Improvisations – Justine Diane Reeve & Lyndsey McLaren

    • Improvisation in Dance – Francis La Flesche & Gill Clarke (various reprints)

    • Dance and the Lived Body: A Descriptive Aesthetics – Sondra Horton Fraleigh

    • Moving History / Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader – Ann Dils & Ann Cooper Albright (eds.)

    • Dance Theatre: An Anthology of New Work – Various authors

    • A Choreographer’s Handbook – Jonathan Burrows

    • Dance and the Camera – Melissa Blanco Borelli & Sherril Dodds (eds.)

    • Dance Making: Choreography and the Creative Process – Betty Redfern

    • Dance as a Theatre Art – Selma Jeanne Cohen (ed.)

    • Creative Dance for All Ages – Anne Green Gilbert

    • Dance Composition: A Practical Guide to Creative Success in Dance Making – Peggy Hackney

    • Material for the Spine – Steve Paxton

    • Choreographing for the Camera: An International Guide to Dance on Screen – Katrina McPherson

    • Envisioning Dance on Film and Video – Judy Mitoma (ed.)

    • World Dance Cultures: From Ritual to Spectacle – Patricia Leigh Beaman

    • Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement – Gerald Jonas

    • An Anthropology of Dance – Drid Williams

    • Dancing Cultures: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology of Dance – Hélène Neveu Kringelbach & Jonathan Skinner (eds.)

    • Dancing at the Crossroads: Memory and Mobility in Ireland – Helena Wulff

    • Rumba: Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba – Yvonne Daniel

    • Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance: Igniting Citizenship – Yvonne Daniel

    • Brazilian Bodies and Their Choreographies of Identification – Cristina F. Rosa

    • African Dance: An Artistic, Historical and Philosophical Inquiry – Kariamu Welsh Asante (ed.)

    • Dancing on the Canon: Embodiments of Value in Indian Classical Dance – Janet O’Shea

    • Worlding Dance – Susan Leigh Foster (ed.)

    • Body, Space, Expression: The Development of Rudolf Laban’s Movement and Dance Concepts – Ciane Fernandes

    • Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives – Anthony Shay & Barbara Sellers-Young (eds.)

    • Choreographing Difference: The Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance – Ann Cooper Albright

    • Dancing Communities: Performance, Difference and Connection in the Global City – Judith Hamera

    • Embodying Brazil: An Ethnography of Diasporic Dance in Israel – Noa Shadur

    • Dancing Women in Postcolonial India: Culture, Context and Performance – Pallabi Chakravorty

    • Embodying Argentina: Tango, Power, and Gender – Marta Savigliano

    • Embodying Cuba: Afro-Cuban Dance and Religion – Yvonne Daniel

    • Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka – Susan A. Reed

    • Sacred Dance: Encounter with the Gods – Maria-Gabriele Wosien

    • Dancing Across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos – Robert Borland

    • Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion – Naomi M. Jackson & Toni Shapiro-Phim (eds.)

    • The Anthropology of Dance – Anya Peterson Royce

    • Moving History / Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader – Ann Dils & Ann Cooper Albright (eds.)

    • Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement – Gerald Jonas

    • Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy – Barbara Ehrenreich

    • Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion – Susan Manning

    • Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage – Sally Banes

    • Choreographing Difference: The Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance – Ann Cooper Albright

    • Bodies of the Text: Dance as Theory, Literature as Dance – Ellen W. Goellner & Jacqueline Shea Murphy (eds.)

    • Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings – Clare Croft (ed.)

    • Worlding Dance – Susan Leigh Foster (ed.)

    • Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka – Susan A. Reed

    • Ballet and Modern Dance: A Concise History – Jack Anderson (sections on social impact)

    • Dance Hall Days: Intimacy and Leisure among Working-Class Immigrants in the United States – Randy D. McBee

    • Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader – Julie Malnig (ed.)

    • America Dancing: From the Cakewalk to the Moonwalk – Megan Pugh

    • Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History – Constance Valis Hill

    • Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance – Susan Leigh Foster

    • Global Perspectives on Dance Pedagogy: Research and Practice – Charlotte Svendler Nielsen & Stephanie Burridge (eds.)

    • Dancing on the Canon: Embodiments of Value in Indian Classical Dance – Janet O’Shea

    • The Politics of Dancing: Rave Culture and Dance Music in Britain – Simon Reynolds (pop culture angle)

    • Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture – Thomas F. DeFrantz

    • Moving History / Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader – Ann Dils & Ann Cooper Albright (eds.) (cultural case studies)

    • Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia – Katherine Mezur & Emily Wilcox (eds.)

    • Hip Hop Dance: Meanings and Messages – Carla Stalling Huntington

    • Swing Dancing: A History of the Great American Dance – Tamara Stevens & Erin Stevens

    • Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion – Naomi M. Jackson & Toni Shapiro-Phim (eds.)

    • Dancing Cultures: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology of Dance – Hélène Neveu Kringelbach & Jonathan Skinner (eds.)

    • Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet – Jennifer Homans

    • Ballet & Modern Dance: A Concise History – Jack Anderson

    • No Fixed Points: Dance in the Twentieth Century – Nancy Reynolds & Malcolm McCormick

    • Dance: A Very Social History – Carolyn Brown & Deborah Jowitt

    • Dancing: The Pleasure, Power, and Art of Movement – Gerald Jonas

    • World Dance Cultures: From Ritual to Spectacle – Patricia Leigh Beaman

    • Ballet in Western Culture: A History of Its Origins and Evolution – Carol Lee

    • The History of Dance – Curt Sachs

    • Dance in Its Time – Walter Sorell

    • Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History – Constance Valis Hill

    • Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage – Sally Banes

    • Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion – Susan Manning

    • The Ballets Russes and Beyond – Judith Chazin-Bennahum

    • Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri Lanka – Susan A. Reed

    • Social Dance: Steps to Success – Judy Patterson Wright

    • America Dancing: From the Cakewalk to the Moonwalk – Megan Pugh

    • Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader – Julie Malnig (ed.)

    • The Cambridge Companion to Ballet – Marion Kant (ed.)

    • The Cambridge Companion to Dance – Helen Thomas (ed.)

    • The Routledge Dance Studies Reader – Alexandra Carter & Janet O’Shea (eds.)

    • A Time to Dance: The Life of Pearl Primus – Jacqueline Green & Peggy Schwartz

    • How to Do the History of Dance – Mark Franko

    • Dance and Society in Eastern Africa 1890–1970 – T. O. Ranger

    • Ballet in the Age of Giselle – Marian Smith

    • Ballet in the Age of Louis XIV – Virginia Tanner

    • The Dancer’s Complete Guide to Injury Prevention and Care – Julie A. Maloney

    • Dance Anatomy – Jacqui Greene Haas

    • Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance – Eric Franklin

    • Conditioning for Dance – Eric Franklin

    • Inside Ballet Technique: Separating Anatomical Fact from Fiction in the Ballet Class – Valerie Grieg

    • The Ballet Companion – Eliza Gaynor Minden

    • The Ballet Book: The Young Performer’s Guide to Classical Dance – Darcey Bussell

    • Classical Ballet Technique – Gretchen Ward Warren

    • Basic Principles of Classical Ballet – Agrippina Vaganova

    • Ballet Technique: An Oral History – John White

    • The Cecchetti Method of Classical Ballet – Cyril W. Beaumont & Stanislas Idzikowski

    • The Illustrated Dance Technique of José Limón – Daniel Lewis

    • The Art of Making Dances – Doris Humphrey

    • Modern Dance Technique and Teaching – Gertrude Shurr & José Limón

    • Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance – Marshall & Jean Stearns (includes training insights)

    • Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History – Constance Valis Hill (training woven into history)

    • Progressions for the Dance Technique Class – Pamela Anderson Sofras

    • Dance Composition: A Practical Guide for Teachers – Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard

    • The Intimate Act of Choreography – Lynne Anne Blom & L. Tarin Chaplin

    • Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet – Gail Grant

    • Stretching for Stiffies – Eugene Sukop (humorous but effective flexibility training guide)

    • Dance Training for the Athlete and Artist – Gigi Berardi

    • The Healthy Dancer: ABT Guidelines for Dancer Health – Linda H. Hamilton

    • Total Training for Young Champions – Tudor O. Bompa

    • Dance Medicine in Practice: Anatomy, Injury Prevention, Training – Liane Simmel & Eva H. Serro

    • What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism – Roger Copeland & Marshall Cohen (eds.)

    • Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras – Robert Gottlieb (ed.)

    • The Routledge Dance Studies Reader – Alexandra Carter & Janet O’Shea (eds.)

    • Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism – Sally Banes

    • Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance – Sally Banes

    • Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance – Susan Leigh Foster

    • Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance – Susan Leigh Foster

    • Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places – Ursula K. Le Guin

    • Dancing Relations: Embodying Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Social Dance – Christina Sunardi

    • Excursion for Miracles: Paul Taylor and His Dancers – Francis Mason

    • Watching Dance: A Handbook for the Twenty-First-Century Audience – Judith Mackrell

    • Dance and the Lived Body: A Descriptive Aesthetics – Sondra Horton Fraleigh

    • Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan – Sondra Horton Fraleigh

    • A Choreographer’s Handbook – Jonathan Burrows

    • Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Practices – Dee Reynolds & Matthew Reason (eds.)

    • The Aesthetics of Enchantment in the Fine Arts – Mikel Dufrenne

    • Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture and Power – Susan Leigh Foster (ed.)

    • Dance, Space, and Subjectivity – Victoria Hunter (ed.)

    • Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance – Gay Morris (ed.)

    • Dance and the Specific Image – Daniel Nagrin

    • The Knowing Body: Elements of Contemporary Performance and Dance – John Emigh

    • On Stage Alone: Soloists and the Modern Dance Canon – Claudia Gitelman & Barbara Palfy (eds.)

    • Critical Gestures: Writings on Dance and Culture – Ann Daly

    • The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics – Rebekah J. Kowal, Gerald Siegmund, & Randy Martin (eds.)

    • The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen – Melissa Blanco Borelli (ed.)

    • Rules for Radicals – Saul D. Alinsky

    • This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century – Mark Engler & Paul Engler

    • Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict – Erica Chenoweth & Maria J. Stephan

    • Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela (global, but highly influential for U.S. activists)

    • Freedom Is a Constant Struggle – Angela Y. Davis

    • March (Trilogy) – John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell

    • Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement – John Lewis & Michael D’Orso

    • Letter from the Birmingham Jail – Martin Luther King Jr.

    • Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–63 – Taylor Branch

    • Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65 – Taylor Branch

    • At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965–68 – Taylor Branch

    • Assata: An Autobiography – Assata Shakur

    • A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History – Jeanne Theoharis

    • Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights–Black Power Movement – Bettye Collier-Thomas & V.P. Franklin (eds.)

    • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander

    • Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965 – Juan Williams

    • Strike! – Jeremy Brecher

    • The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote – Elaine Weiss

    • Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All – Martha S. Jones

    • Gay Rights and American Law – Daniel R. Pinello

    • How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective – Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (ed.)

    • Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal – Aviva Chomsky

    • No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age – Jane McAlevey

    • Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities – Rebecca Solnit

    • Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution – Andrew Boyd & Dave Oswald Mitchell (eds.)

    • The Federalist Papers – Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay

    • Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville

    • The U.S. Constitution and Other Writings – Founding Documents Compilation

    • Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote – Eric Holder & Sam Koppelman

    • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century – Timothy Snyder

    • What You Should Know About Politics… But Don’t – Jessamyn Conrad

    • Why We’re Polarized – Ezra Klein

    • The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels – Jon Meacham

    • We the People: An Introduction to American Politics – Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore Lowi, et al.

    • How Democracies Die – Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt

    • The Road to Unfreedom – Timothy Snyder

    • The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction – Akhil Reed Amar

    • America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction – Jon Stewart (satirical but influential)

    • The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution – Linda R. Monk

    • The Democracy Project – David Graeber

    • The Rights of the People: How Our Search for Safety Invades Our Liberties – David K. Shipler

    • This America: The Case for the Nation – Jill Lepore

    • The Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman – PBS/Ken Burns Companion Book

    • Freedom Is a Constant Struggle – Angela Y. Davis

    • American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith – Smithsonian Institution (companion to exhibit)

    • Civic Education and the Future of American Democracy – Elizabeth Kaufer Busch & William Busch

    • Teaching Civic Engagement Across the Disciplines – Elizabeth C. Matto et al. (eds.)

    • American Government 101 – Kathleen Sears (accessible reference)

    • A Young People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff

    • Keywords for American Cultural Studies – Bruce Burgett & Glenn Hendler (eds.)

    • Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character – Claude S. Fischer

    • A People’s History of the United States – Howard Zinn

    • The American Jeremiad – Sacvan Bercovitch

    • Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination – Toni Morrison

    • The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism – Henry Louis Gates Jr.

    • Notes of a Native Son – James Baldwin

    • The Feminine Mystique – Betty Friedan

    • Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde

    • The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin

    • The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson

    • Cultural Politics in a Global Age: Uncertainty, Solidarity and Innovation – David Held & Henrietta L. Moore (eds.)

    • Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution – Ira Berlin

    • The Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age – Kevin Boyle

    • America Is in the Heart – Carlos Bulosan

    • Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza – Gloria Anzaldúa

    • The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character Since the 1880s – Henry Steele Commager

    • Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville

    • The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America – Richard Rothstein

    • The Age of Fracture – Daniel T. Rodgers

    • The Civil Rights Movement: A Very Short Introduction – Thomas C. Holt

    • American Studies: A User’s Guide – Philip J. Deloria & Alexander I. Olson

    • The American Scene – Henry James

    • Race Matters – Cornel West

    • Inventing the American Way: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement – Wendy L. Wall