Balkan Fascination

Author: Mirjana Lausevic
Published by: Oxford University Press
ISBN 019517867X, 9780195178678
299 pages

The book is divided into four parts, roughly approximating the periods in the history of international fol dance. Part I, "Ethnography of the Balkan Music and Dance Scene" locates the Balkan scene, provides a profile of contemporary Balkanites, and discusses Balkan camps as central of the maintenance of the scene. Part II, "Folk Dancing and Turn-of-the-Century America" is devoted to the understanding of variious uses of folk dance programs in settlement houses and physical education and recreation movements. Part III, "International Folk Dancing from the 1930s to 1950s," is devoted primarily to the rise of an independent "international folk dance" movement. Part IV, "The 1950s and Beyond," is devoted to international folk dancing's "Balkan craze" and the subsequent development of a distinct Balkan music and dance scene.

The book is charting the relationship between the four parts of it, exploring common threads and disjunctions throughout this historical period.