Boots

A few years ago I saw Parsons Dance Co. do "Nascimento". I loved the piece and the music and tried for a while to hunt down exactly which piece (or pieces) of Milton Nascimento's music this was. I kind of forgot about it for a while, then recenlty I came across a compilation CD called Red Hot Rio, which among other things has a track called "Dancing" by Nascimento. I listened to the sample and I swear this is the one of the pieces from the Parsons piece! Does anyone know if my guess is correct? And if so, do you know if "Dancing" is featured on one of Nascimento's CDs? (I don't really want to buy the Red Hot Rio CD - I'd rather find the Nascimento CD if possible). Thanks!

If I'm not mistaken, one of the items on exhibit in the "American Treasures" room at the Library of Congress is a set of early American films (or not really films, but bits and pieces of recorded stuff), which includes some footage of Isadora Duncan dancing (I'm not sure what the piece is, but I remember a sort of fairy or butterfly type costume with wings). It's worth checking out if you're in DC.

Did anyone else go to see the Limon company at the Kennedy Center last week? I saw them for the first time on Friday - it was very interesting to see after only seeing photos of the company from the early days in various dance books. I have to say that I preferred some of the newer works, although "Psalm" was a little on the long side. I was really looking forward to seeing "The Moor's Pavane", since the photos that I'd seen of that piece looked so dramatic. Seeing the piece made me wonder what it must have been like to see Limon himself perform it - what was the level of theatricality then vs. now? I thought it was well done, but one of the men was not very dramatic (I thought), and I got the sense that it didn't have the same feeling that it have had at one time? It speaks to a larger question that I'm sure people have discussed here before - have dancers/companies lost dramatic capability over the years in the quest for technical perfection? Or have audiences lost the ability to recognize it? Or both? (I'm not saying that none of the Limon dancers were dramatic - one woman in particular was very expressive (Kristin Foote?), as well as the central character in Psalm, and the dancer who played The Moor). Anyway - did anyone else see them?

Thanks very much for both the suggestions. I'll see if I can dig them up at the library or elsewhere. Thanks again!

I'm wondering if anyone out there knows of any books about Graham technique. I recently read a book called "Godess" which was a collection of interviews/essays with her dancers. All the other books I've seen about Martha Graham also seem to be perspectives from her dancers or biographies of her. I'm looking for something that really goes into the technique - if anyone has read "The Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Technique" by Renata Celichowska, this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. Any suggestions? Thanks!