100 Books Like The Ecstasy of Being

When I began researching Martha Graham’s multifaceted life, I was intrigued to learn that she spent several summers in the 1930s at the Pueblo communities in New Mexico, where she was fascinated by the ceremonial and ritualistic dance elements of their lives. Entire villages of all generations would gather together on feast days at the center of the pueblo to watch the feather - and shell - and evergreen-costumed pageantry unfold, pounding steps on packed earth, cries to the heavens for rain and good harvests, and prayers for a harmonious year ahead. Graham insisted that she would never “copy” these dances – rather, she took the inspiration gathered in her imagination and mindfully infused it into her own pieces. Thus did Jacqueline Shea Murphy become my very first teacher in the roots and ways of indigenous American dance practices.

In 1946, Sir Robert Paul Cohan CBE (26 March 1925 – 13 January 2021) became one of the first male dancers to join Martha Graham’s company – and stayed for twenty-three years. He went on to become the first Artistic Director of the Contemporary Dance Trust in London and Artistic Advisor to the Batsheva Dance Company in Israel. I had the greatly entertaining privilege of interviewing Sir Robert in the Graham studio at their Westbeth home in NYC, where he regaled me with warm and acerbic vignette memories of “Martha,” her rigorous demeanor, her abrupt critiques, her searching analyses of his movement, her extreme demands as a partner – and her dire yet lyrical sensuality. The book is built around interviews skillfully and subtly conducted by Paul Jackson, principal lecturer in Choreography and Dance at the University of Winchester, UK.

In the fall of 2016, Deborah Hay came to the Montclair State University campus, where I was professor of theatre & dance, to stage her new work, "Figure a Sea," performed by the Cullberg Ballet of Sweden and featuring the music composition of Laurie Anderson. During her time in residence at the university, I talked with Deborah at the Kasser Theatre about her life and work. Hay was one of the founders of the postmodern Judson Dance Theatre in NYC in the early 1960s and she has pursued an iconoclastic, independent, headstrong, and mystical path ever since, which is why I loved chatting with her so much. Her appeal as a teacher in the studio with our students was equally shape-shifting and mind-bending. And this book creates the same ambiance in the reader’s head – it is a synthesis of memoir and physicalized ‘auto-body-ography,’ to subvert the term!… show more.

The life and career of Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) fits – sometimes ideally, at others idiosyncratically – into so many appealing categories that I don’t know when to stop: “Our Crowd” Jewish preppie; poetry lover; art connoisseur while still a teenager (favorite: William Blake); hiker; denizen of Harvard Yard and inveterate dormitory “bull session” instigator; literary magazine editor (Hound & Horn) and art gallery proprietor while still an undergrad; cosmopolite and boulevardier of Manhattan; party-giver and goer; sexual experimenter…and, most pertinent to my journey with Martha Graham, he was the discoverer and “importer” to these shores of the genius George Balanchine, and inventor of the American Ballet Caravan, Ballet Society, and the New York City Ballet. A skeptical critic, Kirstein’s first encounter with Graham was somewhat grouchy – however, he came around to accept her new technique, and his seal of approval gave a timely boost to her reputation.… show more.

I don’t know if this book necessarily takes place in summer, but it’s centered around one of my favorite ‘African-American Joy Rituals’ - the Electric Slide! Kai agonizes over his failure to get a dance nickname from his very cool grandfather because of his two left feet. When his aunt gets married, he’s determined to conquer the Electric Slide at her reception.

Who doesn’t love a good, all-inclusive line dance? I still remember learning the Electric Slide when I was 6– to this day if I’m at a party and it’s playing, you’ll know where to find me (the dance floor!). Fun book.

Gale Galligan is another artist I’ve followed for a while now and it seems like everything they make just overflows with creativity and charm.

I love how Freestyle combines both dance and yo-yoing, two things I’d never think to put together, and makes it work so seamlessly. The book is just pure, vibrant, fun, and even as an adult I found myself going back and admiring the artwork and movement Gale portrays on every page. This is the kind of book that will have readers coming back again and again just to get wrapped up in its beautiful, vivid world. 

Erotic Triangles returns to a part of the world I know well, though the topic is alien to my own natural resource emphasis. Yet I found it fascinating for its symbolic analyses of West Java’s musical and art worlds – intertwined intimately with the relations between men and women and among men. Its emphasis on triangles was the inspiration for me to structure my own analyses as a harp (another ‘triangle’), within which the strings signify traits that men value in a given culture. Spiller’s analysis inspired my own analogy between the creation of harp music and the clusters of values that influence men’s identities, their personal and cultural ‘songs.’

This is my favorite The Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling! Heather Dixon includes all twelve princesses, named after various plants, and gives them distinct enough personalities that not only can you keep them straight, you care about each one. This story follows Azalea, the eldest of the twelve sisters, and the mysterious Keeper, who invites the princesses to dance every night in his silver forest. But the Keeper likes to keep things, and can Azalea bear to pay the cost? Eerie and gorgeous, romantic and masterful!

This colorful picture book, with whimsical illustrations by Maine Diaz, takes the reader on a journey through ten different kinds of dance from around the world. There are pictures of a widely diverse cast performing the dances, from Kuku to cha cha to disco to break dancing.

In addition, movement words like "glide," "dip," and "tap" will inspire children to dance along with the fun and playful words and illustrations.

This book was one of the first—and still one of the best—picture books to describe the importance of jingle dancing and powwow today. The setting is contemporary. The story is engaging. The author, Cynthia Leitig Smith, is a tribal member and weaves many authentic details into the story.