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modern dance

(Encyclopedia)modern dance, serious theatrical dance forms that are distinct from both ballet and the show dancing of the musical comedy or variety stage. By the late 20th cent., distinctions among modern da...

sun dance

(Encyclopedia)sun dance, ceremony typical of the Plains Indians of North America. The ceremony was performed in the summer and lasted from two to eight days. Some of the ceremony was secret. Smoking, fasting, and o...

tap dance

(Encyclopedia)tap dance, theatrical dance form in which the dancer, wearing shoes with metal heel and toe taps, beats out complex, syncopated rhythms on the floor. After a slump in popularity in the 1960s, tap ...

Wovoka

(Encyclopedia)Wovoka wōvōˈkə [key], c.1858–1932, Paiute, prophet of a messianic religion sometimes called the Ghost Dance religion. Also known as Jack Wilson, he was influenced by his father (a mystic) as wel...

revitalization movement

(Encyclopedia)revitalization movement, political-religious movements promising deliverance from deprivation, the elimination of foreign domination, and a new interpretation of the human condition based on tradition...

dance of death

(Encyclopedia)dance of death: see Death, Dance of. ...

Death, Dance of

(Encyclopedia)Death, Dance of, or danse macabre däns məkäˈbrə, –bər, dăns [key], originally a 14th-century morality poem. The poem was a dialogue between Death and representatives of all classes from the P...

Judson Dance Theater

(Encyclopedia)Judson Dance Theater, a loose collective of dancers, musicians, and visual artists that produced an influential series of avant-garde performance pieces at Judson Memorial Church in New York City's Gr...