Overview

This fascinating book explores the rich history of exhibition ballroom dancing from its heyday in the 1910s to the present. Julie Malnig's record of this intimate, theatrical genre of dance features male-female teams--idolized as theatre personalities in cabaret, vaudeville, musicals, and, later, as stars of film and television. Both role models and teachers, exhibition ballroom teams showed the public exciting new forms and styles. Exhibition ballroom dancing is examined as a cultural and social phenomenon promoting new cultural standards, including the emancipation of women and a casualness and spontaneity between the sexes. A comprehensive study of this dance genre and entertainment form, this volume utilizes unexplored primary sources and is illustrated with original photographs. This book can be used by students, researchers, and anyone interested in the history of dance, theatre, and all forms of popular entertainment.

Full Product Details

9780313276477

Table of Contents

Reviews

Written as a straightforward chronology of ballroom dance, the book is well researched and entertaining to read. Malnig pays special attention to the music that helped animate this form of popular entertainment. Undergraduate: graduate: faculty. * Choice * This is a fascinating account of one author's view of the beginnings of exhibition ballroom dance shortly after the turn of the century and her account of its ups and downs through the ensuing years up to the present. * Dance Teacher Now * Dancing Till Dawn is undoubtedly a solid point of departure for future research in this fascinating field of dance as it is found at the interstices of the popular and the theatrical. * Dance Research Journal *

Written as a straightforward chronology of ballroom dance, the book is well researched and entertaining to read. Malnig pays special attention to the music that helped animate this form of popular entertainment. Undergraduate: graduate: faculty. - Choice This is a fascinating account of one author's view of the beginnings of exhibition ballroom dance shortly after the turn of the century and her account of its ups and downs through the ensuing years up to the present. - Dance Teacher Now Dancing Till Dawn is undoubtedly a solid point of departure for future research in this fascinating field of dance as it is found at the interstices of the popular and the theatrical. - Dance Research Journal

This book about ballroom dance is also a book about American social history. Whether polished for the stage or performed in the dance hall, ballroom dancing distills crucial information in a gorgeous time capsule of motion. . . . Now, for the first time, Julie Malnig has gathered together the facts about this curious and wonderful world of dance. Dancing Till Dawn not only sheds light on our past, it provides a strong cornerstone for future research. - Sally Sommer

Author Information

Julie Malnig holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University and teaches seminars on research and writing for a master's degree program at NYU's Gallatin Division. She is an editor for Women & Performance journal and The Feminist Press at the City University of New York. She also has academic and professional credits as a director and actress. Her articles have appeared in Performing Arts Resources, The Passing Show, and other publications, as well as in anthologies and reference books including Theatrical Directors, forthcoming from Greenwood Press.

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