Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1979 - 37

nities form a third part. Literature available from manufacturers and
suppliers is organized in a fourth part under ninety-five generic headings (intercoms, special effects, tickets, etc.). A fifth section consists
of trade names identified with their makers. The final two parts of the
book list manufacturers and suppliers alphabetically and by geographic location.
This magazine format Directory is a very useful reference tool particularly for Ihe student and young professional. It is also a prodigious
first effort for its publishers. By its very nature, the value of the book
resides more in the breadth of its scope and its topicality than in the
enduring accuracy of its every detail. Most of its shortcomings (only
one of America's major theatre consultants listed, for example) seem
minor in light of the overall magnitude of the undertaking and the implied promise Ihat subsequent issues will cover present omissions.
Toronto

Brian Amott

Dance: The Rituals of Experience by Jamake Highwater. New York:
A & W Publishers, Inc., 1978, ISBN 0-89479-020-X, 223 pp., 150
photos., $15.95 cloth.
As the title suggests, this is a book about the roots of dance as a
fundamental expression of human life. Highwater, a North American
Indian, contends that Western Culture, through its emphasis on the
supremacy of rational man, has tended to subvert the deeper more
fundamental meanings of movement and, as a result, .. true" dance
has often been lost. The expressive form of ritual has been replaced
by dance as decorative entertainment (the codification of ballet), by
dance as a tool of politicization and aristocratic ostentation (court
dances of the sixteenth century), by dance as a "step" in courtship
("sexuality is always associated with dancing by materialistic peoples"), by dance as "highbrow circus" (Diagilev's Ballets Russes),
and by dance as a cult of personality. In this latter category Highwater's examples are as divergent as Isadora Duncan "who through
some quirk of intuition may have grasped much of the motives behind
Greek dancing" and Elvis Presley whose "jukin" rockability intuitively
incorporated the primal sexuality of Earl 'Snake Hips' Tucker's dancing.

Having presented the foregoing provocative retrospective of
dance, Highwater goes on to investigate contemporary dance with
equal critical tenacity. Unlike the communal tribal rituals of primal
peoples, Highwater finds in contemporary dance many personal expressions which he defines as idiosyncratic rituals.
In his chapter, "Ten Contemporary Rituals," Highwater offers a
tribute to a handful of choreographers and performers who represent
a direct link between the twentieth century and the wellsprings of
dance. In his discussion of the works of Jose Limon, George Balanchine, Alwin Nikolais, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Eric Haw~ins, Ann Halprin, Robert Wilson (and the two "fakes" Twyla Tharp
and Laura Dean) Highwater actually charts contemporary dancefrom the reinvention of ballet techniques, to using emblematic forms in
choreography and props and kinesthetic extensions of the body.
Highwater's book, so full of challenge and controversy, is written
from the strength of understanding. In this sense, his book is true to
the ritual form for he has written not just a book of dance, but a book
of wisdom.
Syvalya Etchen

Toronto

Books Received
Theatre and Stage ed. by Harold Downs. Conn: Greenwood
Press, Publishers, 1978, 2 Volumes $125.00.
Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone.
New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1979. $11.95.
School and Community Theatre Management by Lawrence
Stern. Boston: Altyn and Bacon, Inc., 1979. $16.95.
Stanislavski in Rehearsal: The Final Years by V.O. Toporkov. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1979. $10.85.
Cottege Guide: A Directory to Dance in North American Colleges and Universities by Dance Magazine. New York: Danad
Publishing Co, 1978. $750.0

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1979