Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance

Whether used alone or as a companion to Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery, which establishes a foundation for the techniques described here, this unique guide shows you how to combine technical expertise with imagery skills to enrich your expressive repertoire.

This versatile text and reference provides 583 imagery exercises designed to improve dance technique, artistic expression, and performance. More than 160 illustrations highlight images and exercises you can put to use immediately in your movements and choreography.

Part I explores using imagery with improvisation. You'll find 195 exercises centered on the body's basic movement images. These improvisational exercises will encourage you to explore new inner landscapes to create and communicate different movement qualities.

Part II provides 314 imagery exercises you can immediately use to improve technique. The book also provides guidelines for applying imagery within the dance class repertoire:

- Floorwork movements
- Standing, walking, running
- Ballet barre exercises
- Swings, arches, spirals
- Upper-body gestures
- Turns and pirouettes
- Jumping
- Partnering

Part III provides imagery tools to enhance or prepare for a performance. You'll learn how to use imagery to convey information about steps and to clarify the intent and content of a movement. In addition, you'll find 40 imagery exercises that focus on active imagination and symbolism, the performance environment, and the audience in the creative process.

Part IV presents 34 exercises to help restore and regenerate the body through guided imagery used with massage and touch. The book details the ideokinetic constructive rest position and Sweigard's nine lines of action.

With Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance, you'll discover how to use the power of your imagination to enhance performances.

Whether used alone or as a companion to Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery, which establishes a foundation for the techniques described here, this unique guide shows you how to combine technical expertise with imagery skills to enrich your expressive repertoire.

This versatile text and reference provides 583 imagery exercises designed to improve dance technique, artistic expression, and performance. More than 160 illustrations highlight images and exercises you can put to use immediately in your movements and choreography.

Part I explores using imagery with improvisation. You'll find 195 exercises centered on the body's basic movement images. These improvisational exercises will encourage you to explore new inner landscapes to create and communicate different movement qualities.

Part II provides 314 imagery exercises you can immediately use to improve technique. The book also provides guidelines for applying imagery within the dance class repertoire:

- Floorwork movements
- Standing, walking, running
- Ballet barre exercises
- Swings, arches, spirals
- Upper-body gestures
- Turns and pirouettes
- Jumping
- Partnering

Part III provides imagery tools to enhance or prepare for a performance. You'll learn how to use imagery to convey information about steps and to clarify the intent and content of a movement. In addition, you'll find 40 imagery exercises that focus on active imagination and symbolism, the performance environment, and the audience in the creative process.

Part IV presents 34 exercises to help restore and regenerate the body through guided imagery used with massage and touch. The book details the ideokinetic constructive rest position and Sweigard's nine lines of action.

With Dance Imagery for Technique and Performance, you'll discover how to use the power of your imagination to enhance performances.

Booknews

A guide to combining technical expertise with imagery skills, providing dancers, teachers, and choreographers with some 500 imagery exercises designed to improve dance technique, artistic expression, and performance. Part I offers exercises centered on the body's basic movement images. Parts II and III provide exercises for specific dance class elements and for enhancing performance. Part IV presents exercises to help regenerate the body through massage and touch. Includes b&w photos and illustrations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Eric Franklin has more than 20 years' experience as a dancer and choreographer. In addition to earning a BFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and a BS from the University of Zurich, he has studied and trained with some of the top movement imagery specialists around the world and used this training as a professional dancer in New York.

Franklin has shared imaging techniques in his teaching since 1986. He is founder and director of the Institute for Movement Imagery Education in Lucerne, Switzerland, and professor of postgraduate studies at the Institute for Psychomotor Therapy in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a guest professor at the University of Vienna (Musikhochschule) and has been on the faculty of the American Dance Festival since 1991. Franklin teaches at universities, dance centers, and dance festivals in the United States and thoughout Europe.

Franklin is coauthor of the bestselling book Breakdance, which received a New York City Public Library Prize in 1984, and author of 100 Ideen für Beweglichkeit and Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery (both books about imagery in dance and movement). He is a member of the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science.

Franklin lives near Zurich, Switzerland, with his wife, Gabriela, and their two children.