John Martin's Book of the Dance.

Published in 1947 under title: The dance.

"The background and development of the dance in all forms and periods / 365 stage and action photographs."-- Cover

PART ONE / Basic Dance : Variations in form ; Basic music -- PART TWO / Dance for the Sake of the Dancer : Folk dancing ; The cycle of ballroom dancing -- PART THREE / Dance as Spectacle : The court ballet ; The ballet becomes professional ; Noverre and the "Ballet of action" ; The Romantic revolution ; Nineteenth century decline ; Fokine reawakens the ballet ; The Russian ballet int he Western world ; Pavlova and Nijinsky ; Diaghileff [i.e., Diaghilev] and the international period ; Leonide Massine ; Bronislava Nijinska ; George Balanchine ; New soil, new roots ; Ballet Theatre ; Antony Tudor and neo-romanticism ; Other American developments ; Europe after Diaghileff ; British Royal Ballet ; The new Russian era ; The Royal Danish Ballet -- PART FOUR / Dance as a Means of Communication : Isadora Duncan ; Denishawn ; Mary Wigman ; Second generation ; Doris Humphrey ; Charles Weidman ; Martha Graham ; Helen Tamiris [and Daniel Nagrin] ; Hanya Holm ; Jose Limon ; Pauline Koner ; Sybil Shearer et al. ; Eleanor King ; Paul Taylor ; Pearl Lang ; Alwin Nikolais ; Lester Horton ; The Negro dance ; "Kykunkor" ; Katherine Dunham ; Pearl Primus ; Talley Beatty ; Alvin Ailey ; Donald McKayle ; The "integrated" company.

"In magnificent pictures and vivid prose, John Martin, the dean of American dance critics - for over twenty years the Dance Editor of the New York Times -traces the development of the dance from its primitive beginnings to the contemporary scene in ballet and modern dance.
Divided into four parts, the work first discusses the Basic Dance, the elemental nature of all dance. The next section, Dance for the Sake of the Dancer, provides a charming and penetrating evaluation of folk and ballroom dancing. This is followed by Dance as Spectacle, tracing the origins and rise of the ballet from its courtly beginnings to the revolutionary innovations of Fokine and Diaghileff and its succeeding ramifications in Balanchine, Tudor, de Mille and many others, both here and abroad. The final section deals with Dance as a Means of Communication and explores in detail the individual contributions of choreographers and interpretive dancers from Isadora Duncan to Martha Graham, Charles Weidman, Sybil Shearer and others. A discussion of the Negro dance and the "integrated" company concludes the survey." -- Book Jacket