Dance Mind & Body

200 pages published: 2003

About the Book

There’s a point where it all comes together—the steps, the breathing, and the style—to transform simple body movements into kinetic works of art. Through illustrations, examples, and reference materials, Dance Mind & Body explores the fine line separating movement and dance while providing practical advice for dancers who want to improve their technique.

Dance Mind & Body features 128 exploration exercises designed to help you improve your focus, observe and explore movement systematically, refine your technique, and create movement phrases. In addition, improvisation challenges at the end of each chapter bring together all the exploration exercises to provide inspiration for you to create longer, more complete movement sequences. At the end of the book, you are challenged to create your own dances from inspiration to presentation. With more than 70 photographs, this handbook for the serious dancer also will help you achieve better posture, a greater sense of movement, and heightened artistic expression.

As the former director of dance at the University of Northern Colorado, author Sandra Minton brings more than 30 years of teaching experience to her latest book. In addition to chapters packed with practical instruction, Minton’s definitive guide features a glossary and biographical highlight boxes describing famous dancers and choreographers.

Dance Mind & Body is designed to help dancers, teachers, and students understand how to create body shapes and lines, explore dynamics and qualities of movement, identify both internal and external sources of inspiration, link movements together to make statements, and expand movement phrases into dances. From the basics of breathing to the complexities of modern choreography and form, Dance Mind & Body offers the practical instruction you need to make the transformation from dance as movement to dance as art.

About the Author

Sandra Cerny Minton, PhD, was the coordinator of the dance program at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley. She has taught and choreographed dance for more than 30 years and directed numerous concerts.

As an active member of the Colorado Dance Alliance; the National Dance Association of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; and the National Dance Education Organization, Minton is well respected as a dance educator. She was a 2001 Fulbright Scholar and honored as the National Dance Association Scholar/Artist in 1999.

Sandra Minton earned her master’s degree in dance education from the University of California at Los Angeles and earned her PhD in dance and related arts from the Texas Woman’s University. The author of numerous articles and books on dance, she resides in Thornton, Colorado.