British figure skater John Curry (1949-1994) was a driving force behind the fusion of figure skating and ballet in the 1970s and 1980s. He won the men’s figure skating gold medal in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck. In addition to ice skating, he was engaged in ballet since his youth, and appeared on stage as a dancer. Curry collaborated with many dance choreographers, leveraging his strengths as a dual-medium performer who advanced both the disciplines of figure skating and ballet. The purpose of this paper is to systematically organize the collaborative achievements as they are still ambiguous and describe then as a history of cultural interaction between figure skating and dance.
Extensive archival research revealed that Curry collaborated with 15 choreographers on 24 figure skating performances between 1976 and 1984. These works were divided into the following groups according to their contents: (1) works created based on the style of classical ballet, (2) works that reflect the artistry of the choreographers, (3) adaptations of existing dance works, and (4)comparative experimental works that contain the same movements on the floor and on the ice. In addition, examining the creative processes and intentions of Curry and the choreographers in detail reveals that their collaborations aimed to expand the forms of classical ballet and postmodern dance, in addition to figure skating. Consequently, their collaborations can be evaluated as epoch-making efforts that connect the history of figure skating with the history of dance.

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This paper focuses on the art and reputation of Alexander Sakharoff (1886-1963), a dancer who can be considered a second-generation artist of the modern dance movement of the 20th century. Sakharoff attracted much attention not only in Europe but also in Japan, where modern dance was in its infancy and where toured twice during the 1930s. Through tracing the characteristics and reputation of Sakharoff’s dance from his own descriptions and the European and Japanese criticisms of the time, this paper discusses how Sakharoff was viewed and debated in terms of modernity in his time.
Sakharoff’s reputation changed a lot over the course of half a century, from being considered a leader of the times to representing stagnation and finally to being a relic of the past. This study considers the criticisms of Sakharoff throughout his career as an indication of the changing concept of modernity in dance rather than the changing in his dance. Sakharoff’s aesthetic tendencies did not assimilate into the late-emerging rationalist modernity, like Harald Kreutzberg’s, but rather reinforced their differences. The paper concludes by arguing that Sakharoff can be understood as defining decadence, an aspect of modernity, in dance history.

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The purpose of this study is for the first author, an educator in somatic movement/dance, to structuralize her own pedagogy using first-person narrative by first-person body. Her somatic movement/dance class in the university using the Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies/System (LBMS) was used as the subject. The data for analysis were the first author’s class notes, the participant’s “Awareness Note,” and the first author’s narratives in dialogue with the second author. The first stage of analysis involved verbalizing the first author’s manifest pedagogy including the flow and content of the class. In the second stage, what the first author shared with the second author revealed that she had her own sensory goal in each class, which was also used in the three stages of planning, teaching, and reflection. The first author calls her sensory goal the “Marble,” which she describes as a phenomenon that can be felt/experienced when the individual ways of being and the atmosphere of the place have certain characteristics, which create the appearance of swirling. The results of this study show that the first author’s pedagogy is based on her own “Marble” experience through learning movement/dance with LBMS in the “first-person body” based on Somatics. This kinesthetic intelligence itself has shaped her pedagogy.

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Along with Bunmei-kaika, various dances within different cultures began to gain reception through an increasingly Western lens and became collectively known as ‘Western dances.’ Before full-scale reception of bellydance after World War II, the bellydance-style dance was performed as a kind of Western dance in the Taisho and early Showa periods. However, there is little mention of the bellydance-style dance’s reception in the historical research of Western Dance. The stages of interest are the Imperial Theater, Asakusa Opera, and others.
Therefore, this paper will focus on the magic stage, a seldomly treated aspect of Western Dance, and consider the establishment of the bellydance-style dance. This consideration will clarify one part of the pre-reception history of bellydance. Based on the dances of modern dance pioneers such as Loie Fuller, Maud Allan, and Ruth St. Denis, this paper examines the bellydance-style dance seen on the stage of Shokyokusai Tenkatsu’s Magic Troupe. In line with the social background of Western dance at the time, this paper will introduce the stage performances of Shokyokusai Tenkatsu and her troupe, mainly through dance. In this paper the author will explore the formation of the image of bellydancestyle dance by focusing on the elements within Hagoromo Dance, Salome and Egyptian Paradise. Performance programs, advertisements, magazine and newspaper articles related to Tenkatsu’s troupe are used as materials for analysis.
In conclusion, the image of the bellydance-style dance is similar to the dances performed by modern dance pioneers. And the bellydance-style dance seen on the stage of Shokyokusai Tenkatsu’s Magic Troupe can be recognized as part of the prehistory of the acceptance of belly dance in Japan.

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