The Alert Collector
Aimee Graham, Editor
Dance and Flamenco, A Guide to Sources
Carol Ann Moon is Associate Professor and Reference and Instructional Outreach Librarian, Daniel A. Cannon Memorial Library, Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, Florida.
Correspondence concerning this column should be addressed to Aimee Graham; email: aimee.graham90@gmail.com.
According to Merriam Webster’s Concise Encyclopedia, dance is a “form of expression that uses bodily movements that are rhythmic, patterned (or sometimes improvised), and usually accompanied by music. One of the oldest art forms, dance is found in every culture and is performed for purposes ranging from the ceremonial, liturgical, and magical to the theatrical, social, and simply aesthetic.” Print dance resources abound in libraries but tend to be out-of-date and general in nature, unless the library is a part of a research institution with dance research as its main mission.
The general nature of dance resources collecting may be to the detriment of providing the patron with deep information about specific dances. For example, flamenco, a complex set of dances and improvisations, originally associated with the Andalusian Gypsies of Southern Spain but now enjoys world-wide appeal and practice, is a specific dance collection development category that often can be missed. This guide, while starting with some information about general dance reference resources that this librarian has found helpful and essential, aims to supply the reader with annotations to books, e-books, web resources, DVDs, and periodicals specifically about flamenco baile, in order to support the collections manager, who may be focusing on the further internationalizing her collection, as well as helping to shed light on the migration and evolution of flamenco dance throughout the world.
Dance
Web Resources
Websites were located using a Google search of the term dance. Thank you to Jacalyn Bryan for her New York Public Library website recommendation for this Dance Web Resources section and for her Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index suggestion for the Dance Databases section.
Congress on Research in Dance (www.cordance.org).
The Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) website supports dance professionals in sharing ideas with one another and with the world through its publications and conferences. CORD publishes the Dance Research Journal (DRJ) three times a year, and the CORD website provides links to JSTOR and Project MUSE databases that index DRJ’s articles.
Dance Magazine (www.dancemagazine.com).
This site is the interactive, electronic companion to the print subscription Dance Magazine and now to iPad subscription version. Some of the subscription articles are available for free on the site, as well as some digital-only content, including blogs, videos, back issues, and more. Although Dance Magazine’s articles are not peer-reviewed, the magazine, in general, is widely read and has been on the scene since 1927.
New York Public Library, Jerome Robbins Dance Division (www.nypl.org/about/divisions/jerome-robbins-dance-division).
The Jerome Robbins Dance Division website is the Internet face of a unique public institution, which began in 1944. The website describes the major collections available through the New York Public Library, including the Gregory Hines Collection of American Tap Dance, the Doris Humphrey Collection, the American Ballet Theatre Archives, just to name a few. The website helps researchers connect with the collections and services with its Avenues of Access page.
Books and Reference Sources
Books and reference sources were found by searching the library catalog and libraries worldwide, both OCLC systems utilizing WorldCat interface. In addition, a Google search was used. Terms that were used were dance and world dance, limited to books and e-books.
Benbow-Pfalzgraf, Taryn and Glynis Benbow-Niemier. International Dictionary of Modern Dance. Detroit: St. James, 1998 (ISBN: 9781558623590).
There are over four hundred entries on a wide array of modern dance topics, including a chronology that begins with the nineteenth century and Francoise Delsarte and concludes with the death of Bessie Schoenberg in the late twentieth century.
Cohen, Selma Jeanne, ed. The International Encyclopedia of Dance. Oxford University Press, 1998 (pISBN: 9780195173697); 2005 (eISBN: 9780195187632).
This award-winning set is comprehensive and includes cultural and national overviews. Extensively illustrated with black and white photographs, this well-respected collection includes over two thousand scholarly articles. Published by Oxford Reference, this encyclopedia has won many awards, including the 1998 ALA/RUSA Outstanding Reference Source.
Craine, Debra and Judith Mackrell. Oxford Dictionary of Dance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010 (ISBN: 9780199563449).
This paperback reference book contains definitions of dance “from Astaire to Zurich Ballet.” It is augmented with a webpage. The dictionary’s entries point to this webpage for supplemental reading and interactive options.
Kassing, Gayle. History of Dance: An Interactive Arts Approach. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2007 (ISBN: 9780736060356).
This hardback volume is primarily written for dance history courses, and it provides timelines throughout the book in order to show the historical and societal context of dances and dancers, beginning with Dance at the Dawn of Time and ending with New Directions: 1980–2000. Especially helpful is the listing of the technological and arts developments that were happening at the same time different dances and dancers were coming on to the world scene and stage.
Periodicals
Dance Research Journal (DRJ) is a publication of the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) and is indexed in JSTOR, Project MUSE, Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index (DELRdi), and the International Index to Performing Arts Full-Text from ProQuest. It is peer-reviewed and covers a wide spectrum of dance topics, including, but not limited to, articles on history, pedagogy, politics, and science.
Journal of Dance Education (JODE) is another CORD publication. JODE’s articles explore scholarly topics as well as practical applications pertaining to dance. JODE enjoys international reach, and its article authors hail from the United States and abroad.
Databases
Dance Education Literature and Research descriptive index (DELRdi) is supported by the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) and contains literature and research from 1926 to present. It is searchable by author, title, publisher, keyword, date, and journal name, to name just a few of the fields. Over two hundred publications are searched via the interface located online at the following web address: www.ndeo.org/content.aspx?page_id=1106&club_id=893257.
ProQuest’s International Index to Performing Arts Full-Text contains over ninety-seven periodicals from 1864 to present. There is an accompanying thesaurus that gives the user more powerful searching ability. It is updated monthly, and now a search may be cross-searched in the International Index to Music Periodicals.
Video Resources
Dance in Video series, produced by Alexander Street Press, contains nine hundred hours of video content for scholars and students of dance alike. This series covers twentieth and twenty-first century dance, performed by outstanding performers and companies. An online interface, employing streaming technology, avoids the need for physical DVDs.
JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance was produced in partnership with the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. There are thirty DVDs and nine books that explore over five hundred performances from over one hundred countries.
Flamenco Dance/Flamenco Baile
Web Resources
Websites were located using a Google search of the terms flamenco dance or flamenco baile (with and without quotes).
National Institute of Flamenco (www.nifnm.org/National_Institute_of_Flamenco/Welcome.html).
This institute is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico and has a new facility for the teaching of flamenco dance. Their mission is “to preserve and promote flamenco’s artistry, history, and culture by presenting the finest flamenco in the world and by educating the American family in this art form while emphasizing the positive influence of art on family and community.”
National Hispanic Cultural Center (www.nationalhispaniccenter.org/index.php).
This is a website that periodically features information about flamenco dance performance. By searching the site for flamenco, one can find out about companies that are currently dancing flamenco. For example, the American Flamenco Company was just featured there.
Books and Reference Sources
Books and reference sources were found by searching the library catalog and libraries worldwide, both OCLC systems utilizing WorldCat interface. Also, a Google search was used. Terms that were used were flamenco, flamenco baile, and flamenco dance, limited to books and e-books.
Bennahum, Ninotchka. 100 Years of Flamenco in New York City. New York: New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 2013.
Dance historian and theorist Bennahum’s exhibit catalog features the historical photos and accompanying textual information that were on display for the acclaimed 100 Years of Flamenco exhibit held at the Vincent Astor Gallery, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, March 13–August 3, 2013.
Bennahum, Ninotchka. Carmen. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2013 (ISBN: 9780819573537).
The fabled Gypsy Carmen is Bennahum’s subject of this recent work. The author traces the Gypsy migration to Andalucia, where the café cantantes became the scene of commercialization of flamenco song, dance, and guitar.
Bennahum, Ninotchka. Antonia Merce. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan, 2000 (ISBN: 9780819563835).
Stage-named “La Argentina,” Antonia Merce was the most sought after Spanish dancer of the early twentieth century. Bennahum takes a look at Merce’s art, the symbolism attached to her, and her role in feminism.
Haas, Ken, and Gwynne Edwards. Flamenco! New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000 (ISBN: 9780500510186).
Prize-winning photographer Haas and University of Wales Spanish professor Edwards have teamed up to show and tell the reader about the beauty, the international phenomenon, and the art form known as flamenco.
Heffner Hayes, Michelle. Flamenco: Conflicting Histories of the Dance. McFarland, 2009 (ISBN: 9780786439232).
Using histories, films, and accounts of live performances, as well as performer interviews, Heffner Hayes analyzes the images of the female flamenco dancer. The book covers the twentieth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century, and the location covered is Spain and abroad. Her thesis is that stereotypes of Carmen and of an idealized Spanish feminine pervade flamenco in its traditional form.
Leblon, Bernard. Gypsies and Flamenco: The Emergence of the Art in Andalucia. University of Hertfordshire Press, 2003 (ISBN: 9781902806051).
This second edition details the role of the Gypsies in the development of flamenco and traces their migration from India, through Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Hungary to their arrival and their persecution in Spain. A biographical dictionary of the two hundred most important Gypsy flamenco artists is included.
La Meri (Hughes, Russell Meriweather). Spanish Dancing. Literary Licensing, 2013 (ISBN: 9781258783495).
La Meri’s work is considered to be a definite text on Spanish dancing. In 1928, she began performing professionally. She taught and gave lecture-demonstrations, as well as published. She received the Capezio Dance Award in 1972, and, in addition to flamenco, she studied Hawaiian dance, Indian dance, ballet, and modern, to name just a few.
Pohren, D. E., The Art of Flamenco. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2013 (ISBN: 9781499169058).
An American guitarist and historian, Pohren delves deeply into the art of flamenco. He also wrote The Lives and Legends of Flamenco.
Schreiner, Claus, Madeleine Claus, and Reinhard Pauly. Flamenco: Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia. Portland: Amadeus, 1990 (ISBN: 9780585348513).
This nearly twenty-five-year-old source covers, among other things, the three performance categories: Cante, Baile, and Guitarra Flamenco. The Baile Flamenco chapter has the following sections: The Golden Age, Origins, Baile Jondo, Techniques of Baile Flamenco, Styles of Baile, La Joselito, and Bailaoras and Bailaores. Claus Schreiner is a German music producer and a flamenco enthusiast. Included are captivating black and white photos, as well as a map of Andalusia.
Thiel-Cramer, Barbara. The Art of Flamenco and Its History, and Development Until Our Days. Lidingö, Sweden: Remark, 1991 (ISBN: 9789197125925).
Like the Schreiner book, this comprehensive volume combines historical overview information on flamenco, highlighting the song, dance, and guitar of flamenco. Thiel-Cramer is the former department chair of Spanish Dance, College of Dance, Stockholm, Sweden.
Vega de Triana, Rita. Antonio Triana and the Spanish Dance: A Person Recollection. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1993 and Routledge, 1994 (ISBN: 9783718654086).
This book is part of a series entitled Choreography and Dance Studies Series. Its subject, Antonio Triana, was the foremost Spanish dancer and teacher of his time. He was born in 1917 in Seville, Spain, and he danced with legendary La Argentinita, Pilar Lopez, and Carmen Amaya.
Vitucci, Matteo. The Language of Spanish Dance: A Dictionary and Reference Manual. Princeton Book Company, 2003 (ISBN: 9780871272560).
The terms in this second edition may be grouped into four categories: terms with general application in Spanish dance, those associated with escuela bolera, regional dance terms, and flamenco dance terms. The basic rhythms and melodic lines to fifteen flamenco dances are included as well.
Washabaugh, William. Flamenco: Passion, Politics, and Culture. Oxford; Washington, DC: Berg, 1996 (eISBN: 9781847880284, pISBN: 9781859731710).
An anthropological treatment, which is heavily flamenco music (cante) oriented, this book gives an important history of flamenco in Spain, during the Franco regime. Part of a series called Explorations in Anthropology, this book is, in part, an analysis of flamenco’s role in the strategies of Franco’s supporters, as well as in the strategies of his opponents.
DVDs
Ajami, Jocelyn. Gypsy Heart: The Heart and Soul of Flamenco/Amaya, Omayra. Kultur Video, 2005.
The video takes a look into the life of Boston flamenco dancer and teacher, Omayra Amaya, grandniece of the famous Carmen Amaya.
Gades, Antonio and Carlos Saura. Carmen. Teatro Real, 2012.
Filmed at the Teatro Real in Madrid, this film is a rebirth of the classic Bizet’s Carmen, with traditional Spanish flamenco infused into the story.