PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Rebecca Rossen, Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance, The University of Texas at Austin
Rossen's deft interweaving of beautifully-written movement descriptions with rigorous scholarship produces a multifaceted analysis of the role of Jewish identity within the development of modern and postmodern dance. Dancing Jewish is an important original contribution to dance studies. Ann Cooper Albright, author of Engaging Bodies: the Politics and Poetics of Corporeality Rebecca Rossen's highly readable Dancing Jewish is a major contribution to both Jewish studies and dance/performance studies. Drawing on a rich mix of archival work, interviews with performers, and the author's personal experience as a dancer and choreographer, the book is a shining example of how performance-centered research can take us places that scholarship could not otherwise reach. Henry Bial, University of Kansas, author of Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen
