Tango

Tango
Author: Robert Farris Thompson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2006-12-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1400095794

In this generously illustrated book, world-renowned Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson gives us the definitive account of tango, "the fabulous dance of the past hundred years–and the most beautiful, in the opinion of Martha Graham.” Thompson traces tango’s evolution in the nineteenth century under European, Andalusian-Gaucho, and African influences through its representations by Hollywood and dramatizations in dance halls throughout the world. He shows us tango not only as brilliant choreography but also as text, music, art, and philosophy of life. Passionately argued and unparalleled in its research, its synthesis, and its depth of understanding, Tango: The Art History of Love is a monumental achievement.

Dancing with the Unconscious

Dancing with the Unconscious
Author: Danielle Knafo
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2012-04-23
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1136951334

In writing and lecturing over the past two decades on the relationship between psychoanalysis and art, Danielle Knafo has demonstrated the many ways in which these two disciplines inform and illuminate each other. This book continues that discussion, emphasizing how the creative process in psychoanalysis and art utilizes the unconscious in a quest for transformation and healing. Part one of the book presents case studies to show how free association, transference, dream work, regression, altered states of consciousness, trauma, and solitude function as creative tools for analyst, patient, and artist. Knafo uses the metaphor of dance to describe therapeutic action, the back-and-forth movement between therapist and patient, past and present, containment and release, and conscious and unconscious thought. The analytic couple is both artist and medium, and the dance they do together is a dynamic representation of the boundless creativity of the unconscious mind. Part two of the book offers in-depth studies of several artists to illustrate how they employ various media for self-expression and self-creation. Knafo shows how artists, though mostly creating in solitude, are frequently engaged in significant relational proceses that attempt rapprochement with internalized objects and repair of psychic injury. Dancing with the Unconscious expands the theoretical dimension of psychoanalysis while offering the clinician ways to realize greater creativity in work with patients.