This content contains scenes that may shock an uninformed audience.
Do you still want to watch it?
The Shakers
The Shakers represents the Shaker sect at meeting and is a study of religious ecstasy.
The drum, accordian and voice accompaniment was arranged after the dance had been composed. « God hath revealed », the Shakers say, « that eternal life shall be the reward of the Chosen few who are shaken clean of sin. »
The dance opens with men and women kneeling in a square formation before the platform where the Elders sits.
As religious excitement seizes them, the square begins to break until the peak of excitement is reached in the leaping wich shakes away their sins.
The dance is punctuated with several intervals of silence whie the Shakers receive some visitation from the Invisible Spirit.
This is the first dance of its kind to be based on an American religious sect.
Source: Program note March 14-15, 1935, Doris Humphrey & Charles Weidmanand their dance group – Repertory Theatre, Boston
Specialists in the publishing and distribution of dance books and dance videos for over 35 years, with a list of over 500 dance related titles. We publish under the imprint Dance Horizons and distribute for The Dance Notation Bureau and Dance Books Ltd. In March of 2000 we launched a new imprint to publish books of general interest, Elysian Editions, with The Magic Of Provence: Pleasures of Southern France by Yvone Lenard. Visit our Elysian Editions pages to see Ms. Lenard’s books as well as other titles under this imprint.
Source: Princeton Book Co. Publishers
More information: https://www.dancehorizons.com
