Customer Reviews

Something In The Way She Moves: Dancing Women From Salome To Madonna

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

As someone deeply interested in feminism and dance, I was excited to read what Buonaventura has to say in this book. However, it wasn't 20 pages in that I started to realize SHE doesn't quite know what to say. Oh yes, she has a lot of opinions, many of them broad generalizations of entire dance forms: modern belly dance has been bastardized by the West, and only insecure losers would pay money to learn it; ballet is an assault on the female body and completely unnatural. But her opinions don't ever add up to a coherent thesis, at least one that could pass for a strong, developed argument. She supports none, or very little, of her information with a credible source, instead expecting readers to believe her glossed-over summaries of centuries of dance history in various cultures.

Moreover, and this is the saddest part, I actually liked dance less while reading this book. By halfway through (which is when I figuratively tossed this book), I couldn't even tell if SHE liked dance. Don't waste your time on this half-baked, vaguely depressing tome.

Wendy Buonaventura's book is a book about the way women have gained freedom from the constraint's of society through dance. How the "battle of the sexes" have played out on the dance floor, and how society views women during different historical periods. This book is a "must read" for any serious student of dance, whether male or female. Some people may find sections of the book offensive, but, hey, the way women were treated in society and are still treated is offensive, Wendy just points out the obvious!
It's an intelligent, thoughtful, well-written book, with all her sources listed for further study. For those of us women in the dance world, it rings very true and very close to home.
However, this book should be read by the general public, just not dancers. It is for anyone interested in societal pressures on women, and men, and how dance often spurs change.
I have bought this book for dancer friends and donated to a few libraries, it is a book that should be on every dancer's shelf.

I was well into this book and thinking "This author does NOT like middle eastern dance" You can imagine my suprise when I got to the last chapter and realized middle eastern dance is her passion. The last chapter was the only one that kept me interested. The rest of the book had some small interesting tid-bits, but just not enough. I do see she as a book just on middle eastern dance and I will give that a try. This one was a little hard to read.