Description: Sally Banes has been a preeminent critic and scholar of American contemporary dance, and Before, Between, Beyond spans more than thirty years of her prolific work. Beginning with her first published review and including previously unpublished papers, this collection presents some of her finest works on dance and other artistic forms. It concludes with her most recent research on Geroge Balanchine's dancing elephants. In each piece, Banes's detailed eye and sensual prose strike a rare balance between description, context, and opinion, delineating the American artistic scene with remarkable grace. With contextualizing essays by dance scholars Andrea Harris, Joan Acocella, and Lynn Garafola, this is a compelling, insightful indispensable summation of Banes's critical career.
Brief description: Sally Banes is the Marian Hannah Winter Professor Emerita of Theater History and Dance Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her many books include Reinventing Dance in the 1960s, Terpsichore in Sneakers, Dancing Women, Democracy's Body, and Greenwich Village 1963.
Review Quotes: "Banes is one of the major dance critics and historians of our time. She explores a wide range of artistic and cultural issues--from experimental art to disco dancing to ballet dancing for elephants--in prose as engaging as it is erudite. Experiencing her mind, as many serious lovers of dance will agree, is a heady experience."--Deborah Jowitt, New York University, author of Time and the Dancing Image