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When a dancing master arrived in Boston in 1685 and offered lessons and classes for both sexes during times normally reserved for church meetings, the Puritan ministers went to court to suppress the practice. Increase Mather (1639-1723) took the leading part, writing and publishing this tract, which compiles arguments and precedents for the prohibition of "Gynecandrical Dancing, [i.e.] Mixt or Promiscuous Dancing, viz. of Men and Women ... together." These justifications were certainly shared with the court, which found the dancing master guilty, fined him £100, and allowed him to skip town. Mather's tract on dancing is an overwhelming compendium of sources and authorities: from the Bible, classical authors, Christian Church Fathers, medieval philosophers, and Reformed theologians both Continental and English. None of them, it appears, approved of mixed dancing-because it leads to adultery and worse. The vilest sins and the direst disasters lie only a short step from the dance floor. The Arrow is remarkable for two things (at least): for how much allusion and citation are packed into its brief 30 pages, and for how quickly it escalates the issue into life-or-death scenarios, all vividly painted to emphasize the mortal danger of men and women dancing together.
Whether in the private parlor, public hall, commercial "dance palace," or sleazy dive, dance has long been opposed by those who viewed it as immoral--more precisely as being a danger to the purity of those who practiced it, particularly women. In Adversaries of Dance, Ann Wagner presents a major study of opposition to dance over a period of four centuries in what is now the United States. Wagner bases her work on the thesis that the tradition of opposition to dance "derived from white, male, Protestant clergy and evangelists who argued from a narrow and selective interpretation of biblical passages," and that the opposition thrived when denominational dogma held greater power over people's lives and when women's social roles were strictly limited. Central to Wagner's work, which will be welcomed by scholars of both religion and dance, are issues of gender, race, and socioeconomic status. "There are no other works that even begin to approach this definitive accomplishment." --Amanda Porterfield, author of Female Piety in Puritan New England
Miranda refused to listen to warnings. She didn't love Mark Sanders, but that didn't matter. He was heir to the estate where her mother was housekeeper. As Lady Sanders, Miranda could ensure a better life for her mother as well as herself. But Mark was killed just before the wedding—the day her mother suffered a paralyzing stroke. Jaime Knevett, the new heir, suggested a way out of Miranda's dilemma. But Miranda had destested him for years and it was with reluctance that she agreed to marry him. Then, after the ceremony, she found herself deserted.
Dance Music of the French Baroque brings together information on rhythm from the interrelated fields of music, dance, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. Part I is devoted to the various factors involved in dance rhythms, including tempos, rhythmic feet, dance steps, declamation of lyrics, instrumental articulation, and performance of ornaments. Part II describes in alphabetic order the fifteen most frequently encountered dances of the period and identifies the most typical performance of each in relation to the factors discussed in Part I. With reference to numerous illustrations and musical examples, it clearly conveys the manner in which the allemandes, bourées, chaconnes, gigues, etc., may be executed. This practical book presents a myriad of information in a form that is easy to use yet as graceful as the dances it describes.
Satan in the Dance Hall explores the overwhelming popularity of social dancing and its close relationship to America's rapidly changing society in the 1920s. The book focuses on the fiercely contested debate over the morality of social dancing in New York City, led by moral reformers and religious leaders like Rev. John Roach Straton. Fed by the firm belief that dancing was the leading cause of immorality in New York, Straton and his followers succeeded in enacting municipal regulations on social dancing and moral conduct within the more than 750 public dance halls in New York City. Ralph G. Giordano conveys an easy to read and full picture of life in the Jazz Age, incorporating important events and personalities such as the Flu Epidemic, the Scopes Monkey Trial, Prohibition, Flappers, Gangsters, Texas Guinan, and Charles Lindbergh, while simultaneously describing how social dancing was a hugely prominent cultural phenomenon, one closely intertwined with nearly every aspect of American society fromthe Great War to the Great Depression. With a bibliography, an index, and over 35 photos, Satan in the Dance Hall presents an interdisciplinary study of social dancing in New York City throughout the decade.
Generations of Texans have believed that “to dance is to live.” At rustic “play parties” and elegant cotillions, in tiny family dance halls and expansive urban honky-tonks, from historic beginnings to next Saturday night, Texans have waltzed, polkaed, schottisched, and shuffled their way across the state. In Dance across Texas, internationally known dance instructor and writer Betty Casey takes an informal look at the history of Texas dancing and, in clear diagrams, photos, and detailed instructions, tells “how to” do more than twenty Texas dances. Previously, little had been recorded about the history of dancing on the frontier. Journal and diary entries, letters, and newspaper clippings preserve enticing, if sketchy, descriptions of the types of dances that were popular. Casey uses a variety of sources, including interviews and previously unpublished historical materials, such as dance cards, invitations, and photographs, to give us a delightful look at the social context of dance. The importance of dance to early Texans is documented through colorful descriptions of clothing worn to the dances, of the various locations where dances were held, ranging from a formal hall to a wagon sheet spread on the ground, and of the hardships endured to get to a dance. Also included in the historical section of Dance across Texas are notes on the “morality” of dance, the influence of country music on modern dance forms, and the popularity of such Texas dance halls and clubs as Crider’s and Gilley’s. The instruction section of the book diagrams twenty-two Texas dances, including standard waltzes and two-steps as well as the Cotton-Eyed Joe, Put Your Little Foot, Herr Schmidt, the Western Schottische, and such “whistle’” or mixer dances as Paul Jones, Popcorn, and Snowball. Clear and detailed directions for each dance, along with suggested musical selections, accompany the diagrams and photos. Dance and physical education teachers and students will find this section invaluable, and aspiring urban cowboys can follow the easy-to-read diagrammed footsteps to a satisfying spin around the honky-tonk floor. Anyone interested in dance or in the history of social customs in Texas will find much to enjoy in this refreshing and often amusing look at a Texas “national” pastime.
Moving Lessons is an insightful and sophisticated look at the origins and influence of dance in American universities, focusing on Margaret H'Doubler, who established the first university courses and the first degree program in dance (at the University of Wisconsin). Dance educator and historian Janice Ross shows that H'Doubler (1889–1982) was both emblematic of her time and an innovator who made deep imprints in American culture. An authentic "New Woman," H'Doubler emerged from a sheltered female Victorian world to take action in the public sphere. She changed the way Americans thought, not just about female physicality but also about higher education for women. Ross brings together many discourses—from dance history, pedagogical theory, women's history, feminist theory, American history, and the history of the body—in intelligent, exciting, and illuminating ways and adds a new chapter to each of them. She shows how H'Doubler, like Isadora Duncan and other modern dancers, helped to raise dance in the eyes of the middle class from its despised status as lower-class entertainment and "dangerous" social interaction to a serious enterprise. Taking a nuanced critical approach to the history of women's bodies and their representations, Moving Lessons fills a very large gap in the history of dance education.
Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal’s rambling, rambunctious masterpiece Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is all these and more. Speaking to a group of sunbathing women who remind him of lovers past, this elderly roué tells the story of his life—or at least unburdens himself of a lifetime’s worth of stories. Thus we learn of amatory conquests (and humiliations), of scandals both private and public, of military adventures and domestic feuds, of what things were like “in the days of the monarchy” and how they’ve changed since. As the book tumbles restlessly forward, and the comic tone takes on darker shadings, we realize we are listening to a man talking as much out of desperation as from exuberance. Hrabal, one of the great Czech writers of the twentieth century, as well as an inveterate haunter of Prague’s pubs and football stadiums, developed a unique method which he termed “palavering,” whereby characters gab and soliloquize with abandon. Part drunken boast, part soul-rending confession, part metaphysical poem on the nature of love and time, this astonishing novel (which unfolds in a single monumental sentence) shows why he has earned the admiration of such writers as Milan Kundera, John Banville, and Louise Erdrich.