When Men Dance explores the intersection of dance and perceptions of male gender and sexuality across history and different cultural contexts. In many societies, the public performance of dance is regarded as a feminine activity, so that men who dance often operate in a sea of stereotypes. This volume's scholarly essays tackles the history and dilemmas that revolve around dance and notions of masculinity from a variety of dance studies perspectives. Accompanying the theoretical chapters are a group of fascinating personal histories that complement their themes. The dancing male body emerges in its many contexts, from the ballet, modern, and popular dance world to stages in Georgian and Victorian England, Weimar Germany, India and the Middle East. The men who dance and those who analyze them tell stories that will be both familiar and surprising for insiders and outsiders alike.

An intriguing, readable book about how, why, when, and where men dance...Highly recommended. * Choice *

Jennifer Fisher is an associate professor in the dance department of the University of California, Irvine Jennifer Fisher and the author of the prize-winning Nutcracker Nation: How an Old World Ballet Became a Christmas Tradition in the New World (2003,Yale University Press). She has contributed dance writing to a number of scholarly publications, as well as the Los Angeles Times. Anthony Shay is the founding artistic director and choreographer of the AMAN Folk Ensemble and the AVAZ International Dance Theatre, dance companies that specialized in world dance. He received numerous choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, James Irvine Foundation, and the California Arts council. He currently teaches at Pomona College.