Alien Bodies ─ Representations of Modernity, 'Race' and Nation in Early Modern Dance

Alien Bodies is a fascinating examination of dance in Germany, France, and the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Ranging across ballet and modern dance, dance in the cinema and Revue, Ramsay Burt looks at the work of European, African American, and white American artists.
Among the artists who feature are:
* Josephine Baker
* Jean Borlin
* George Balanchine
* Jean Cocteau
* Valeska Gert
* Katherine Dunham
* Fernand Leger
* Kurt Jooss
* Doris Humphrey
Concerned with how artists responded to the alienating experiences of modern life, Alien Bodies focuses on issues of:
* national and 'racial' identity
* the new spaces of modernity
* fascists uses of mass spectacles
* ritual and primitivism in modern dance
* the 'New Woman' and the slender modern body

Ramsay Burt is the author of the highly acclaimed The Male Dancer. He is currently Senior Research Fellow in Dance at De Montfort University.