In this new history, McDougall, an arts journalist, revisits the twentieth century, a particularly dance-rich time in New York City, with an eye to the social and cultural context in which dancing occurs. “Dance history,” he writes, “often maintains a separation between ‘high’ and ‘low.’ ” In “Nonstop Bodies,” he attempts to overcome this divide, placing modern dance pioneers, such as Martha Graham, side by side with the more democratic, but no less fertile, creativity of the people who invented the city’s iconic dances. The Lindy Hop, an inventive, joyfully virtuosic dance to jazz, was developed during the Harlem Renaissance. The dance, McDougall writes, “actively rejected the idea of individual creators,” revelling instead in the inventions of each dancer, each couple, who contributed to an ever-expanding pool of ideas about movement, which subsequently became available to all.
