Dance Composition

by Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard

Dance composition - the discipline that translates ideas into dances - is an important part of dance education. For over twenty years, Dance Composition has been the leading guide to creative success in dance making, useful to everyone interested in dance composition, at both high school and college levels. This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter exploring creative processes in relation to composing dances.

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[AJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a confession to make: I didn't actually read this book all the way through. I found the parts on actually composing dances to be very interesting, but then when the focus switched to constantly talking about how awesome the author's DVD resource pack is, I lost interest. Look, I agree with her that DVD technology makes it easier to review choreographies, and that it can be a useful tool for teaching dance composition to college students, but I feel like that probably should have been a separate book.

I'm sure I'll return to this book later, as it's a reference for a dance course I'm taking, but at my current level and style of dance, I think it's a little above my head. I may update my rating in the future, when I've reached a point where the material is actually applicable to what I'm doing.

[Jacinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a lot of unnecessary repetition inside this book! And straw. Section 2 and 6 are OK, but sections 4 and 5 are infomercials. And even English is not my first language, I must say the author needs a better editor. I read the sixth edition, which supposedly means the book has been improved several times. However, I found many punctuation mistakes and redundant paragraphs.