{"product_id":"america-dancing-megan-pugh-9780300201314","title":"America Dancing: From the Cakewalk to the Moonwalk","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn exuberant history of American dance, told through the lives of virtuoso performers who have defined the art\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The history of American dance reflects the nation's tangled culture. Dancers from wildly different backgrounds learned, imitated, and stole from one another. Audiences everywhere embraced the result as deeply American. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Using the stories of tapper Bill \"Bojangles\" Robinson, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, ballet and Broadway choreographer Agnes de Mille, choreographer Paul Taylor, and Michael Jackson, Megan Pugh shows how freedom--that nebulous, contested American ideal--emerges as a genre-defining aesthetic. In Pugh's account, ballerinas mingle with slumming thrill-seekers, and hoedowns show up on elite opera house stages. Steps invented by slaves on antebellum plantations captivate the British royalty and the Parisian avant-garde. Dances were better boundary crossers than their dancers, however, and the issues of race and class that haunt everyday life shadow American dance as well. Deftly narrated, \u003ci\u003eAmerica Dancing\u003c\/i\u003e demonstrates the centrality of dance in American art, life, and identity, taking us to watershed moments when the nation worked out a sense of itself through public movement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Megan Pugh\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0300201311\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780300201314\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Yale University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/17\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 416\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.60lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.50h x 6.40w x 1.10d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/15\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/15\/2015 pg. 87\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/06\/2015 pg. 52\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/18\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/25\/2016 pg. 15","brand":"Megan Pugh","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47420879732991,"sku":"9780300201314","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_32773758-1d35-4fe3-9cc7-81f3cb63ecf4.jpg?v=1761526446","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/america-dancing-megan-pugh-9780300201314","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}