Chronicling the messages in dance

Anthony Shay, founding artistic director of the L.A.-based Avaz International Dance Theatre, is now making his mark as a writer. He’s just won a prize for one book and has received a sizable grant to write another.

Shay won the 2003 Congress on Research in Dance Award for his “Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies” (Wesleyan Press). He has also received a $40,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to write about immigrant dance culture in the U.S.

“Choreographic Politics,” Shay says, deals with “how national dance companies like the Moiseyev Dance Company and Amalia Hernandez’s Ballet Folklorico de Mexico are created and developed within a social ethnic and gendered environment and how these then purport to represent their nation-state. Although viewers think they’re looking at colorful dance performances, in fact these companies very carefully embed political and ethnic messages within their performances.”

The book took Shay about two years to write. He will receive his award at a CORD conference in August. He expects to finish his next book, with the NEH grant, by the end of 2003.

-- Chris Pasles