About the Book:”. . . almost every page offers provocative commentary on the aesthetics and politics of modern dance.” Signs”. . . [an] important step . . . in the ineluctable dance by postmodern historians across a bridge that spans the gaps among disciplines, between theory and practice, and betweeen present and past.” Theatre Journal”This complex and important book needs to be read by anyone interested in dance history or the cultural politics of dance.” Dance Theatre Journal”Mark Franko’s Dancing Modernism/Performing Politics is challenging, groundbreaking, insightful, and, I believe, an important contribution to the field of dance scholarship.” Dance Research JournalA revisionary account of the evolution of “modern dance” in which Mark Franko calls for a historicization of aesthetics that considers the often-ignored political dimension of expressive action. Includes an appendix of articles of left-wing dance theory, which flourished during the 1930s.Table of Contents: Introduction1. The Invention of Modern Dance2. Bodies of Radical Will3. Emotivist Movement and Histories of Modernism: The Case of Martha Graham4. Expressivism and Chance Procedure: The Future of an Emotion5. Where He DancedAppendix: Left-Wing Dance Theory: Articles on dance from New Theatre, New Masses, and Daily WorkerNotesBibliographyIndex