Papers by Ninotchka Bennahum
Routledge eBooks, Sep 10, 2018
<jats:p>Vicente Escudero was a multitalented artist. There is no question that the great ba... more <jats:p>Vicente Escudero was a multitalented artist. There is no question that the great bailaor Antonio el de Bilbao, whom he met on a tour of Andalusia and Portugal, had a lasting influence on Escudero, as did the modernist dance-theater of La Argentina, the Ballets Russes, and the visual art revolution. He even became a close friend of the modern master Pablo Picasso. Between 1920 and his debut as a concert dancer in 1927, Escudero honed his craft and his choreography, learning to dance longer works in the cafés cantantes of Madrid. Escudero was particularly known for his famous Farruca solo, and for his performances with Carmita Garcia, who would become his lifelong stage partner. Dancing on a concert stage, Escudero was received by critics like André Levinson, who wrote seriously about his work as a dancer and a choreographer.</jats:p>
Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 18, 2022
Guided by an unwavering belief in the moral capacity of dance to transform human society and effe... more Guided by an unwavering belief in the moral capacity of dance to transform human society and effect social change, Anna Schuman Halprin (b. 1920) shaped the radical, Jewish nature of postmodern dance. With her invention of task-based improvisation as a method of devising dance—a clandestine, communitarian agent of change—Halprin espoused dance making as a basic human right. This chapter essays how Halprin envisioned postwar dance as environmental study rather than merely physical practice. Through her visionary work Halprin reconceived movement as engendering climate activism and social justice, radical beliefs that emerged out of her Talmudic pedagogy. Dancing bodies were retrained, away from technique, narrative, and desire, toward a reinvention out of one’s relationship to and study of the natural world.
Routledge eBooks, Sep 10, 2018
<jats:p>Antonia Rosa Mercé y Luque, known by her stage name La Argentina, was the most cele... more <jats:p>Antonia Rosa Mercé y Luque, known by her stage name La Argentina, was the most celebrated Spanish dancer of the early 20th century. Greatly influenced by the modernist productions of the Ballets Russes who sought political refuge in neutral Spain during World War I, La Argentina fused the modernism of the Spanish School of Music to the Escuela Bolera, or Spanish Bolero School of classical dance, adding many rhythmic and choreographic stylizations from Romani flamenco and other complex regional styles of folk dance she had learned on ethnographic trips throughout Spain. This hybrid vision resulted in a polyrhythmic, African and Hispano-Arab-Sephardic fusion of musical and choreographic cultures whose artistic influence can still be felt along the Iberian Peninsula. With this rich and varied musical and choreographic vocabulary, and a full company of Romani, Spanish, and European dancers and musicians, La Argentina took Europe, the Americas and Asia by storm. Between her first tour to New York in 1915 and her final European performances in 1936, she introduced and cultivated global audiences by performing, touring, writing, publishing and giving afternoon lectures on the subject of the Spanish dance,</jats:p>
Dance Research Journal, 2000
... By 1923, Argentina&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s name was uttered in the... more ... By 1923, Argentina&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s name was uttered in the same breath as that of the great French tragedienneSarah Bernhardt, the American dancers Isadora Duncan and Lo&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;e Fuller, the Spanish film and stage actress Raquel Meller, and the Spanish &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;art&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; dancer Tortola Valencia. ...
Dance Research Journal, 2009
<jats:p>Vicente Escudero was a multitalented artist. There is no question that the great ba... more <jats:p>Vicente Escudero was a multitalented artist. There is no question that the great bailaor Antonio el de Bilbao, whom he met on a tour of Andalusia and Portugal, had a lasting influence on Escudero, as did the modernist dance-theater of La Argentina, the Ballets Russes, and the visual art revolution. He even became a close friend of the modern master Pablo Picasso. Between 1920 and his debut as a concert dancer in 1927, Escudero honed his craft and his choreography, learning to dance longer works in the cafés cantantes of Madrid. Escudero was particularly known for his famous Farruca solo, and for his performances with Carmita Garcia, who would become his lifelong stage partner. Dancing on a concert stage, Escudero was received by critics like André Levinson, who wrote seriously about his work as a dancer and a choreographer.</jats:p>
<jats:p>Antonia Rosa Mercé y Luque, known by her stage name La Argentina, was the most cele... more <jats:p>Antonia Rosa Mercé y Luque, known by her stage name La Argentina, was the most celebrated Spanish dancer of the early 20th century. Greatly influenced by the modernist productions of the Ballets Russes who sought political refuge in neutral Spain during World War I, La Argentina fused the modernism of the Spanish School of Music to the Escuela Bolera, or Spanish Bolero School of classical dance, adding many rhythmic and choreographic stylizations from Romani flamenco and other complex regional styles of folk dance she had learned on ethnographic trips throughout Spain. This hybrid vision resulted in a polyrhythmic, African and Hispano-Arab-Sephardic fusion of musical and choreographic cultures whose artistic influence can still be felt along the Iberian Peninsula. With this rich and varied musical and choreographic vocabulary, and a full company of Romani, Spanish, and European dancers and musicians, La Argentina took Europe, the Americas and Asia by storm. Between her first tour to New York in 1915 and her final European performances in 1936, she introduced and cultivated global audiences by performing, touring, writing, publishing and giving afternoon lectures on the subject of the Spanish dance,</jats:p>
Choice Reviews Online, 1995
Choice Reviews Online, 2014
The figure of Carmen has emerged as a cipher for the unfettered female artist. Dance historian an... more The figure of Carmen has emerged as a cipher for the unfettered female artist. Dance historian and performance theorist Ninotchka Bennahum shows us Carmen as embodied historical archive, a figure through which we come to understand the promises and dangers of nomadic, transnational identity, and the immanence of performance as an expanded historical methodology. Bennahum traces the genealogy of the female Gypsy presence in her iconic operatic role from her genesis in the ancient Mediterranean world, her emergence as flamenco artist in the architectural spaces of Islamic Spain, her persistent manifestation in Picasso, and her contemporary relevance on stage. This many-layered geography of the Gypsy dancer provides the book with its unique nonlinear form that opens new pathways to reading performance and writing history. Includes rare archival photographs of Gypsy artists.
Dance Magazine, Nov 1, 2003
Dance Research Journal, 2000
... By 1923, Argentina&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s name was uttered in the... more ... By 1923, Argentina&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s name was uttered in the same breath as that of the great French tragedienneSarah Bernhardt, the American dancers Isadora Duncan and Lo&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;e Fuller, the Spanish film and stage actress Raquel Meller, and the Spanish &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;art&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; dancer Tortola Valencia. ...
Dance Chronicle, 2000
... With the ephemerality of dance, Argen-tina&#x27;s lack of students (she did not live to e... more ... With the ephemerality of dance, Argen-tina&#x27;s lack of students (she did not live to establish the national dance school in Spain that she had been ... and 1930s, and this the author does admirably in the course of her analyses of such major ballets as El amor brujo, Triana, and El ...
The Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance, 2022
Guided by an unwavering belief in the moral capacity of dance to transform human society and effe... more Guided by an unwavering belief in the moral capacity of dance to transform human society and effect social change, Anna Schuman Halprin (b. 1920) shaped the radical, Jewish nature of postmodern dance. With her invention of task-based improvisation as a method of devising dance—a clandestine, communitarian agent of change—Halprin espoused dance making as a basic human right. This chapter essays how Halprin envisioned postwar dance as environmental study rather than merely physical practice. Through her visionary work Halprin reconceived movement as engendering climate activism and social justice, radical beliefs that emerged out of her Talmudic pedagogy. Dancing bodies were retrained, away from technique, narrative, and desire, toward a reinvention out of one’s relationship to and study of the natural world.
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Papers by Ninotchka Bennahum