Choreographic Music: Writings in American Arts Periodicals, 1914–1993 is the first reference work to compile writings on dance music from periodicals, such as Dance Observer, Dance Perspectives, Modern Music, and Theatre Arts, that have not been digitized. The bibliography catalogs all writings pertaining to choreographic music in prominent American dance and arts periodicals spanning from 1914, the publication date of the first issue of Modern Dance Magazine, to 1993, after which many periodicals are digitized and can be accessed through academic research databases. These boundary dates also encompass in totality the work of the two twentieth-century choreographers who have received the most press coverage and scholarly attention: George Balanchine (1904–83) and Martha Graham (1894–1991).
While the entries in the bibliography are compiled exclusively from American periodicals, the coverage within these sources is international in scope and documents changing trends in choreographic music throughout the twentieth century, as well as a growing interest to investigate the history of dance music and develop a technical vocabulary to describe choreomusical processes. This book contains a plethora of resources pertaining to the celebrated twentieth-century collaborations between choreographers and composers, including George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky; Merce Cunningham and John Cage; Martha Graham and Louis Horst; and Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein. Perhaps more importantly, it alerts researchers to fascinating partnerships that have not yet been studied in-depth—such as collaborations between John Butler and Gian Carlo Menotti, and Paul Taylor and Donald York—and to choreographers who compose their own music, like Laura Dean, Meredith Monk, and Alwin Nikolais.
Citations are indexed by author, composer, choreographer, and dance title. A vast subject index complements the other indices by listing names of individual dancers, dance companies, performance venues, and stylistic categories.
