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Dance and Its Music in America, 1528-1789.

Article Excerpt
Dance and Its Music in America, 1528-1789. By Kate Van Winkle Keller. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2007. [xviii, 697 p. ISBN-10 1576471276; ISBN-13 9781576471212. $84.] Illustrations, maps, bibliographic references, index.

This is an encyclopedic "narrative" (the author's term, see pp. 1 and 652) about dance and dance music during the American colonial period, covering the 261 years from the landing of a Spanish expedition in the area of the present Tampa Bay, Florida, to the "birth of the United States of America" (p. 652), symbolized by the very first session of the newly formed United States Congress in New York followed by the inauguration of George Washington in the spring of 1789. Dance, as defined by the author, encompasses "any choreographic activity performed to musical accompaniment" (p. 1). Thus, the dance activities of both native and immigrant populations are pertinent to this account. Following the first two chapters on Spanish and French settlements, respectively, the author focuses on the activities of those dwelling mostly along the Atlantic seaboard, grouping them in the next four chapters into four geographic areas ("The English Plantation Colonies in the South," "The Tobacco Colonies," "New England [parts 1 and 2]," and "The Middle Atlantic-Colonies [parts 1 and 21"), each area encompassing state subdivisions, thereby affording a convenient comparison of cultural, religious, economic, and geographic factors affecting dance within and among areas...