AltaMira Press
Pages: 264
•
Trim: 7 x 9
978-0-7591-0859-2 • Paperback • July 2006 • $62.00 • (£48.00)
978-0-7591-1419-7 • eBook • July 2006 • $58.50 • (£45.00)
Judith Lynne Hanna (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a senior research scholar in the Department of Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Part 1 I. Setting the Stage
Chapter 2 Prelude
Chapter 3 1. Evolution's Gifts
Chapter 4 2. Dance-Stress Coupling
Part 5 II. Historical and Non-Western Dance-Stress Relations
Chapter 6 3. Meeting the Gods and Demons
Chapter 7 4. Shaking Off Poison, Plague, Death, and Sin
Chapter 8 5. Coming to Terms with Life Crises
Chapter 9 6. Resolving Conflict
Chapter 10 7. Revitalizing the Past and Facing the Future
Part 11 III. Western Dance-Stress Relations
Chapter 12 8. "Playing" Onstage in Western Theatrical Dance
Chapter 13 9. A Dance Career in the West
Chapter 14 10. Amateur Dancing in the West
Chapter 15 11. Dance/Movement Therapy
Chapter 16 Finale: Dance and Stress Resistance, Reduction, and Euphoria
Hanna, with her unique vision as a dancer and anthropologist, has written a wonderfully comprehensive book illuminating the interplay between dance and stress. By offering a cross-cultural perspective, she deftly describes dance across the world as both a strategy to communicate and relieve stress as well as a potential cause of stress to the performer and observer.
— Ginny Wilmerding, President, International Association for Dance Medicine & Science
Hanna draws on her own experiences as a life-long student of dance, on anthropological research, and on her worldwide travels to demonstrate the role of dance as a healing art for all kinds of stress. Divided into three sections—"Setting the Stage," "Historical and Non-Western Dance-Stress Relations," and "Western Dance-Stress Relations"—the book's 11 chapters explore dance as art, as entertainment, as therapeutic exercise, and as a competitive discipline. The author describes how numerous cultures have employed dance to deal with life crises, resolve conflicts, revitalize the past, and face the future. She also details the many physical and emotional pitfalls dancers encounter, for example issues surrounding body image. This well-written book will interest a broad audience, including health researchers, therapists, psychologists, dancers, and anthropologists.
— Choice Reviews
Dance, that double edged sword, ought to come with a warning label. Now it has one at last — Dr. Judith Hanna's book. It helps you explore dance, whether you see it as high art or sexy entertainment, whether you use it as therapeutic exercise or competitive discipline. Dr. Hanna understands it as only someone can who loves it as a fan, who practices it as a student, and who researches it as a scholar. To share her insights, she keeps the prose perky and the concepts clear.
— George Jackson, dance critic and historian
In an impressive, descriptive way Hanna elaborates that dance is a communication that we cannot express through words, a venue for storytelling while involved in a commonly accepted form of therapy…. Hanna's book presents a new and interesting perspective on how dance can be therapeutic and help relieve the stress response…. I strongly recommend this book to everyone, dance professional or amateur, including those with an interest in the health aspects of dance.
— Body, Movement and Dance In Psychotherapy