Modern Dance: A Historical Consideration

This thesis presents a selection of my published works and an accompanying exposition to demonstrate my sustained, substantial, continuous and coherent research and how it has made an original contribution to the field of dance history.

The nine selected published works—Volume 2—written over the course of three decades, consider modern dance between 1900 and 1945 and how its historical study illuminates this significant period. All these writings made contributions to dance history that were original in their time. My first publication helped to define the field of dance history. My most recent one has taken an innovative approach to modern dance, informed by my developed understanding of the idea of dance history.

The exposition—volume 1— examines my ideas of dance history. It does so by placing my writings within the context of the development of dance history as a field, especially in the UK. It goes further by considering this development within the broader context of the development of history as a discipline, both philosophically and practically. This contextualisation is then used to reflect further on my writings and their original contributions to dance historiography. I conclude with a reconsideration of the idea of dance history.