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BOOK REVIEWSOOK REVIEWSwould be better forbeing permanently ixedor forbeing fugitive;even the long term effects that particularmethods(e.g. notation)may haveupon the practiceof dance are considered. It is shownthat no single method of recordingis best, and that ideally anumber should be combined. Everything said is sensible,intelligent,alert:comments and stricturesaretellingand author-itative.Yet important acunae remain.Forexample:more shouldhave been said about the slipperinessof the term identity.Thekind of identityused to prove copyrightis farremoved from theidentity f the dance work as an interpreterpursuesit. The first smerely the demand for some uniquely linked characteristic,equivalent to an author's fingerprint or handwriting. Thesecond is in the nature of a search for a normative deal, for arealisation of a work's core aesthetic properties,its very raisond'etre.

Despite such minor reservations,A MeasuredPace is to bewarmly acclaimed. Anyone seriously intent on understandingdance will find this book, like its predecessor, ndispensable.TrevorWhittock

BORDERTENSIONS:DANCEASDISCOURSE: ROCEEDINGSOF THEFIFTH STUDYOFDANCECONFERENCEUniversityof Surrey,20-23 April 1995Guildford:Universityof Surrey,1995, 386 pp., ?17.50 p/b

This unedited volume of conferenceproceedings, consisting ofthirty-fivepapers alphabeticallyorderedby author, supplemen-ted by descriptionsof performancespresentedat the conference,is inevitablyheterogeneousin approachand uneven in quality.

would be better forbeing permanently ixedor forbeing fugitive;even the long term effects that particularmethods(e.g. notation)may haveupon the practiceof dance are considered. It is shownthat no single method of recordingis best, and that ideally anumber should be combined. Everything said is sensible,intelligent,alert:comments and stricturesaretellingand author-itative.Yet important acunae remain.Forexample:more shouldhave been said about the slipperinessof the term identity.Thekind of identityused to prove copyrightis farremoved from theidentity f the dance work as an interpreterpursuesit. The first smerely the demand for some uniquely linked characteristic,equivalent to an author's fingerprint or handwriting. Thesecond is in the nature of a search for a normative deal, for arealisation of a work's core aesthetic properties,its very raisond'etre.

Despite such minor reservations,A MeasuredPace is to bewarmly acclaimed. Anyone seriously intent on understandingdance will find this book, like its predecessor, ndispensable.TrevorWhittock

BORDERTENSIONS:DANCEASDISCOURSE: ROCEEDINGSOF THEFIFTH STUDYOFDANCECONFERENCEUniversityof Surrey,20-23 April 1995Guildford:Universityof Surrey,1995, 386 pp., ?17.50 p/b

This unedited volume of conferenceproceedings, consisting ofthirty-fivepapers alphabeticallyorderedby author, supplemen-ted by descriptionsof performancespresentedat the conference,is inevitablyheterogeneousin approachand uneven in quality.

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DANCE RESEARCHProfessorAdshead-Lansdale'sopeningaddress.She explainsthatthe first such conference,in 1981, concentratedon the distinc-tiveness of dance, 'carvingout our own field of study in thehigher education sector'; but this approach ran the risk ofisolation, and the present conference seeks to relate danceresearch to such related fields as music, theatre and the visualarts,as well as to approachesof generalcontemporary nterest:feminism, postmodernism,and cultural criticism.The 'bordertensions' arisefromthese conflictingnecessitiesof maintainingadistinctiveacademic and bureaucratic dentitywhile emphasiz-ing the inseparabilityof dance from other activities.Evidently,allparticipantswere made aware of this chosen emphasis,becauseall of them have been at pains to identifysome borderor sometension on which to hang their contributions.Each paperseeksto go beyondmeredescriptionand chronicleand address tselftosome debatable issue.Not all attempts to achieve theoretical interest are equallysuccessful. In the only paper that explicitly addresses themethodologicalquestion, Helen Thomas points to the futilityof merely citing a string of fashionable theorists (Foucault,Baudrillard,Bourdieuand such) as authorities,withoutactuallyengagingtheirthought.And Thomas herself seems to exemplifya pervasiveweakness that she does not discuss,when she devotesa page to expoundingLacan'srevisionof Freud withoutexplain-ing why the mere factthata voguishtheorist has said somethingis a reason forbelievingit. The word 'discourse',much favouredby the contributors,may suggestthat the currencyof a phraseol-ogy in certain circles suffices to confer authority on one'saffirmations,without any need for evidenceor argument.The demand fortheorizinghas affecteddifferentcontributionsin different ways. Iris Garland, for instance, introduces anaccount of T6rtolaValencia, a dancer long popularthroughoutthe Hispanic world in which she was a cult figure among theyoung literati, by saying that 'one of the consequences ofpostmoderncultural theory is the considerationof voices that

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BOOK REVIEWSby historianshardly needs postmodernistexplanations.If suchforgotten figures are restored to memory, it will probablyowemore to the need of graduatestudentsfor ever-new dissertationtopics than to any revolutionin the method of dance studies.Ann Daly, by contrast,cites the authorityof Bourdieu'sworkon 'distinction' o show how many features of IsadoraDuncan'sdancing, togetherwith what she said about it, were designedtoalign it with upper-classart, as opposed to the mere 'entertain-ment' as which theatre dance had been traditionally dentified.The brevity necessitated by the conference format, however,prevents Daly from making a convincing case; one is leftwondering why the alleged manoeuvreswould haveworked,orwhetherthey would all have located Duncan in the same socialstratum.In fact, the hierarchyof prestige suggested by Daly'streatmentseems much less powerfullystructured han the socialmovementswith which earlierwork on Duncan has familiarisedus; perhapswe should take Daly's presentationratheras a merepromissorynote for more elaborate treatmentto be publishedelsewhere. Meanwhile, the invocation of Bourdieu contributeslittle to our understanding.Several of the papers explore the theme of the male ormasculinegaze: in dance, female bodies are looked at by maleeyes. The favouritereference here is LauraMulvey's VisualandOther leasures(1989). Perhapsthe most imaginative reatmentofthis theme is by Valerie A. Briginshaw, who contrasts thedistancing eye of the travellingmale with the engaged body ofthe situatedfemale. Severalpapers on this topic are perceptiveand suggestive.But some contributors are a little hasty: somefailedto make clearto themselveshow theytake the constructionof genderto be relatedto the factualityof sex, othersoverestimatethe dichotomy in today's dance world between female perfor-mers and male spectators. n the lastpublicdanceperformanceattended(MacMillan'sManon,National Ballet ofCanada,5 May1996),there seemed to be as many men as women among theprincipal dancers, and women in the audience notably out-

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DANCE RESEARCHgender lines in a Greek festival,Alexandra Carter'saccount ofthe symbolismof gender in English music-hallballets between1884 and 1915,LindaJ. Tomko's treatment of the re-genderingof English traditionaldance on its introduction to the UnitedStates, Trish Winter's bewildered and bewildering encounterwith aerobicsvideos, Stacey Prickett'spresentation(too depen-dent on its accompanyingvideos, alas) of Joe Goode's inspiredplaying with gender identifications, and M. A. Greenstein'saccount of the astonishingcase of the LosAngeleschoreographerFrank Guevara,who crossed many borders and encounteredtensionson all of them.Shortageof space preventsme fromnaming all the papersinthis outstandingcollection, even those I found most valuable.Readers are urged to foragefor themselves.

FrancisSparshott

CHOREOGRAPHINGISTORYEdited by Susan Leigh Foster.Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1995.257 pp., photo-graphs,diagrams,bibliography, ndex. ?27.50, cloth;?13.99, paperbound.

The notion of a mind-bodysplithas dominatedwestern intellec-tual life for centuries.During the Middle Ages and the Renais-sance, music scholars parrotedAristotle on the superiorityoftheoryto practice: t is betterto be the one who writes about whatis done than the one doing it (vide Lambertus:'Any ass canbray').Someyearsago, teachinga movementworkshopas partofa seminar on dance criticism,I was taken aback by the younguniversity teacher of dance history and aesthetics - once adancer,I believe - who said flatly, 'I don't dopractical.'

DANCE RESEARCHgender lines in a Greek festival,Alexandra Carter'saccount ofthe symbolismof gender in English music-hallballets between1884 and 1915,LindaJ. Tomko's treatment of the re-genderingof English traditionaldance on its introduction to the UnitedStates, Trish Winter's bewildered and bewildering encounterwith aerobicsvideos, Stacey Prickett'spresentation(too depen-dent on its accompanyingvideos, alas) of Joe Goode's inspiredplaying with gender identifications, and M. A. Greenstein'saccount of the astonishingcase of the LosAngeleschoreographerFrank Guevara,who crossed many borders and encounteredtensionson all of them.Shortageof space preventsme fromnaming all the papersinthis outstandingcollection, even those I found most valuable.Readers are urged to foragefor themselves.

FrancisSparshott

CHOREOGRAPHINGISTORYEdited by Susan Leigh Foster.Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress, 1995.257 pp., photo-graphs,diagrams,bibliography, ndex. ?27.50, cloth;?13.99, paperbound.

The notion of a mind-bodysplithas dominatedwestern intellec-tual life for centuries.During the Middle Ages and the Renais-sance, music scholars parrotedAristotle on the superiorityoftheoryto practice: t is betterto be the one who writes about whatis done than the one doing it (vide Lambertus:'Any ass canbray').Someyearsago, teachinga movementworkshopas partofa seminar on dance criticism,I was taken aback by the younguniversity teacher of dance history and aesthetics - once adancer,I believe - who said flatly, 'I don't dopractical.'

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