Customer Reviews

Stepping Left: Dance and Politics in New York City, 1928–1942

5 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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This book gives an interesting and vivid portrait of the left-wing dance scene in New York City in what was perhaps my grandparents' time. A confluence of all kinds of dancers, ranging from modern to agitprop, from fine art to mass street sensibility, from ballet to ethnic, existed in the same small area. They learned at each other's studios and performed in each others' shows. There was an atmosphere of political idealism and perhaps insurrection, that permeated much of the dance scene as well as other art worlds. Many of the artists portrayed in this book were themselves Jewish immigrants, as were my grandparents (although mine weren't into dance at all).

I recognized only a few names like Martha Graham... she had her own approach and yet also worked with many other artists of quite a different stripe.

Written in a clear and readable style, this book appears to be very well-researched and sympathetic but not biased either politically or artistically. The descriptions of the very different aesthetic inspirations and the general creative approaches used by each of the dancers presented really made the descriptions come to life. Lots of archival photos, too.

It was a window peeking into another world, one that I previously had no knowledge of.

An apologia for the Jewish Communist dancers from New York City in the 1930s. They fought for "justice" but apparently never heard of the Gulag, the Moscow show trials, or the famine in Ukraine. Basically they hated America & loved the Soviet Union, responsible for over 60 million deaths in the 20th Century. If Americans were not completely equal they shrieked (& danced) in horror. Artists murdered in the USSR got no sympathy from them. Although largely Jewish, they could care less for the Russian Jews victimized in the Great Terror. Osip Mandelstam? They never heard of him. There is enough factual historical information here to bring it up from 1 to 2 stars.The author is a good little academic progressive who mouths off about social justice & writes endlessly about McCarthyism although remaining mute on the 60 millions souls exterminated while her Upper West Side comrades celebrated Murder, Inc.