Dancing on the Third Coast, Volume 1: Performing Modernisms – Hardcover

The 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition brought an international array of dance to Chicago. Thereafter, the citys dance community became a meeting place for cultures where dance styles from around the world blended to emerge in bold, original forms and strike out in new directions.

Susan Manning and Lizzie Leopold offer original essays from voices at all levels of the Chicago dance scene that explore dance in the city through the rise of the 1960s Black Arts Movement. From the beginning, dance performances questioned assumptions about gender, race, and the control of culture. Immigrant groups and Indigenous performers, among others, danced to express identity and resist injustice. The Black Arts Movement used dance to build pride and community. Throughout the period, migration and segregation shaped dance scenes while dance expanded through neighborhoods, clubs, settlement houses, and schools.

The first of two volumes, Dancing on the Third Coast: Performing Modernisms shines a light on long-overlooked Chicago artists and institutions as it repositions the city as an essential part of dance history in the United States.

Contributors: Jake Austen, Bril Barrett, David R. M. Beck, Sophie Benn, Cristin Carole, Joanna Dee Das, Amira Millicent Davis, Samuel N. Dorf, Tanya Jayani Fernando, Jessica Friedman, Megan E. Geigner, Nadine George-Graves, Auna R. Hearne, Pamela Krayenbuhl, John Neumeier, Liesl Olson, Jenna Pearse-Pollack, Jessica Erin Ray, Tyler T. Schmidt, Caroline Drane Shadle, Nina S. Spiegel, Lauren Warnecke, Carolyn Watts, Dorene Wiese, Queen Meccasia Zabriskie