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Physics and the Art of Dance: Understanding Movement 2nd Revised edition


Physics and the Art of Dance: Understanding Movement 2nd Revised edition

Paperback by Laws, KennethProfessor Emeritus (, Dickson College); Sugano, Arleen

Physics and the Art of Dance: Understanding Movement

£52.00

ISBN:
9780195341010
Publication Date:
6 Nov 2008
Edition/language:
2nd Revised edition / English
Publisher:
Oxford University Press Inc
Pages:
288 pages
Format:
Paperback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 10 - 15 May 2024
Physics and the Art of Dance: Understanding Movement

Description

Physics and the Art of Dance gives all who enjoy dance - whether as dancers, students, teachers, or fans - an opportunity to understand what happens when human bodies move in the remarkable ways we call dance. How, for instance, do dancers create the illusion of defying gravity? Or of starting to spin when in the air with no source of force to act on their bodies? You may observe some dancers using their arms in a way that allows some to jump higher than others. What is that technique, and why does it work? In this second edition, author Ken Laws - a physicist with years of professional dance training - teams with veteran dance instructor Arleen Sugano to provide new step-by-step experiments for dancers. "What you see" sections describe the way physical principles form the framework within which some movements exist. The complementary "What you do" sections allow dancers to experience how those physical analyses can provide them a more efficient means of learning how to carry out those movements. Throughout, the book shows how movements are first artistic expressions, and secondly movements of the body within the framework of easy-to-understand physical principles. Dancers and dance instructors will find in this book an efficient means of improving technical proficiency and growing professional and aesthetic development. For physics and science teachers, the book provides a new and compelling way to draw people into the world of science. And observers and fans of dance will marvel over the beautiful time-stop photography by renowned dance photographers Martha Swope and Gene Schiavone.

Contents

Foreword by Martha Swope ; Preface ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Balance ; 3. Motions Without Turns ; 4. Pirouettes ; 5. Turns in the Air ; 6. The Pas de Deux ; 7. The Mechanics of Partnered Turns ; 8. The Mechanics of Lifts ; 9. The Effects of Body Size ; 10. A Step into the Future ; Appendix A - Linear Mechanics and Newton's Laws ; Appendix B - Rotational Mechanics ; Appendix C - Anatomical Data for Dancers ; Appendix D - Rotational Inertia for Some Body Configurations ; Appendix E - Acceleration Away from Balance ; Appendix F - Off-Balance Pirouettes ; Appendix G - Arabesque Turn Analysis ; Appendix H - Quantitative Analysis of the Grande Pirouette ; Appendix I - Quantitative Analysis of the Fouette Turn ; Appendix J - Quantitative Analysis of the Supported Fouette Turn ; Appendix K - Lean, Don't Slip ; Appendix L - Biomechanical Forces in a Dancer's Body ; Glossary ; Index

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