Anna Halprin pioneered what became known as postmodern dance, creating work that was key to unlocking the door to experimentation in theater, music, Happenings, and performance art. This first comprehensive biography examines Halprin s fascinating life in the context of American culturein particular popular culture and the West Coast as a center of artistic experimentation from the Beats through the Hippies. Janice Ross chronicles Halprin s long, remarkable career, beginning with the dancer s grandparentswho escaped Eastern European pogroms and came to the United States at the turn of the...

The powerfully moving story of the Russian Jewish choreographer who used dance to challenge despotism
Everyone has heard of George Balanchine, but few outside Russia know of Leonid Yakobson, Balanchine's contemporary and arguably his equal, who remained in Lenin's Russia and survived censorship during the darkest days of Stalin. Like Shostakovich, Yakobson suffered for his art and yet managed to create a singular body of revolutionary work that spoke to the Soviet condition. His ballets were considered so explosive that their impact was described as "like a bomb going off."
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