‘Color me modern!’ cries clever new dance book on Intl Women’s Day

Dance
(already colored!) yoshiko chuma, jennifer mueller
photo courtesy ‘modern women,’ etc. Facebook page

Today is International Women’s Day, the most sacrosanct date in March, which is Women’s History Month. But … just for a moment, ladies: Think GIRL! Each of us started as one — packing roller skates, Oreo cookies, and crayolas. So, get into a girlish mood, and crack open Modern Women: 21st Century DANCE, a fun, just-published book that is the vision of one of our foremost dance photographers.

That would be Julie Lemberger. She and her editor, Elizabeth Zimmer, have collaborated on producing a fun and educational homage to the strong women of dance. Because the figures are based on dance photos, they are in vivid action mode. The book’s pithy captions also inform. It all happened zippety doo-dah during a sad time — the coronavirus quarantine, when the dance world shut down. But our love of dance and our vivid imaginations are not that easily quelled.

A sampling of the dancers in the book: Hope Boykin, Rena Butler, Michelle Dorrance, Julia K. Gleich, Nia Love, Jody Oberfelder, Eiko Otake, Sally Silvers, Jody Sperling, Pam Tanowitz, among many more.

Lemberger’s tome is based on her library of shots from the last twenty years of New York City’s living women dancers, innovators, and interpreters across diverse genres and perspectives. It’s history … it’s now! Let’s make sure we have dance in our future.

Modern Women, 21st Century Dance, author Julie Lemberger, editor Elizabeth Zimmer | get it on ETSY.

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