Product Description
In the late 1800s, the Ghost Dance religion promised hope and resurrection for the future at a time when native American tribes across America faced destruction.Misunderstood by white authorities, the Ghose Dance sparked the savage attack on Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in 1890.In his many paintings, some of which are seen in Ghost Dance:The Art of JD Challenger, the artist revives the spirit of the Ghost Dance, brining new life to warrior faces and renewing the bonds of strength and dignity linking Native Americans to their history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Work of the Master
JD Challenger is a Master of Native American Art.His Ghost Dance series continues to be one of the most collected works of American Art.Anyone who loves our heritage should get this and let JD work his Spiritual magic on you.

Hauntingly beautiful
The art technique makes these images truly stick in your memory. The subjects could easily have been made to appear terrifying, but Challenger evokes the spirit of a proud people living their lives in harmony with nature and yet "living life on the edge" as well.You can look into the eyes of these images and swear you can understand their trials and joys.Challenger has given life to his art, and that is no small accomplishment.

More Ghost Dance Than Ever!
Two things strike me about this calendar from JD Challenger. The first is that it is enjoying the phenomenal popular and commercial success that this artist so richly deserves; and quite frankly, it's very affordable compared to similar calendar products. The second is that the entire offering, all twelve months' worth, is consistent with a single theme and most definitely not meant to catalogue this artist's capabilities. This theme must mean something special to him; in fact, he attributes the Ghost Dance to the original inspiration that moved him to pursue a life dedicated to telling the Native American story in art. So on the one hand this calendar serves as an affordable yet fairly deep representation of an important theme in Challenger's artwork; but on the other hand, this offering does not attempt to represent anything even approximating the full depth and scope of this man's art. So if you buy this collection for yourself or as a gift, keep in mind that you're not getting a fully representative compendium of the artist's work... Nevertheless, the prospect of having twelve Challengers reasonably well printed representing such an influencial force to the artist makes this offering highly compelling to both the dedicated Challenger fan and the casual "I-like-Native-American-Art" calendar user. In not too many years hence, there is the distinct possibility that JD Challenger will become one of the most influencial and celebrated American artists of our generation. Since very few of us are ever going to own a "real" Challenger or even his increasingly collectible seriographs, the medium of The Calendar brings his message to anyone who can afford a dollar a month for artwork. And this is a great medium for this artist (in addition to obvious ones he pursues with such success); his is a message that deserves to hang on your refrigerator and not just in galleries and museums. And if you're ever through Taos, be sure to visit his studio; it's awe-inspiring to see some of his works-in-progress sitting yards away from a $40,000 canvas, each of which will ultimately hang in whatever serves as America's Louvre a hundred years from now. ... Read more

Product Description
The linking theme of these essays is modernity, for Woolf was writing in a world radically separated from the old certainties by the catastrophe of World War I. Here she provides some responses to what she called "the crowded dance of modern life". ... Read more

Product Description
This guide aims to engage children in developing control, co-ordination, balance, poise and elevation in the basic actions of travelling, jumping, turning and gesture and stillness. It aims to show them how to perform movements or patterns, including some from existing dance traditions. It also aims to show children how to express feelings, moods, ideas, responding to music, by using rhythmic responses and contrasts of speed, shape, direction and level. It includes detailed lesson plans for years 1-2, and is up to date with the national curriculum. It also outlines both what to teach and how to teach it well. ... Read more

Product Description
These vividly written letters document the lives of two remarkable women artists who were at the center of twentieth-century dance modernism. Mary Wigman's groundbreaking choreography and inspired performing in Germany during the 1910s and 1920s brought the emerging art of modern dance into dialogue with modern painting, theater, and film. Her disciple Hanya Holm took Wigman's aesthetic philosophy to the United States in 1931, effectively adapting it to the American temperament, and ultimately became a celebrated choreographer of Broadway musicals such as Kiss Me, Kate and My Fair Lady. Written between 1920 and 1971, Wigman's letters are a treasury of fascinating detail about artistry, friendships of women, and the stamina of two artists who refused to capitulate to personal, political, and cultural forces that confronted them. They inject immediacy into discussions of Wigman's work within the Third Reich and cast light on Holm's construction of an American identity. With her extensive annotation Gitelman contributes context to the domestic and social spheres within which the women worked on two continents. Never before published in any language, these letters are untapped resources for historians of twentieth-century culture, German-American relations, as well as dance. ... Read more

Product Description
This work aims to engage children in composing and controlling their movements by varying shape, size, direction, level, speed, tension, and continuity. A number of dance forms from different times and places are covered, including some traditional dances of the British Isles. It also aims to show children how to express feelings, moods, ideas, responding to music, and creating simple characters and narratives in response to a range of stimuli through dance. It includes detailed lesson plans for years 3-7, and is up to date with the national curriculum. It also outlines both what to teach and how to teach it well. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

INFO...
This teaching resource should help non-specialist primary teachers to implement the physical education curriculum. It contains valuable information on necessary subject knowledge about dance for juniors, teaching strategies, progression and achievement, and assessment.
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Product Description
No one can say when or by whom, the Gaelic originals were composed; they were handed down by oral tradition to the men and women from whom Alexander Carmichael received them during his long life (1832-1912).Those who made and used these verses felt the presence of God and his messengers in all concerns of their lives : in their human relationships, in birth and death, in waking and sleeping, in their work, at home, in the fields, and on the sea. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sun of the Seasons, Mother of the Stars...
Failte ort fhein, a ghrian nan trath
Ag siubhal ard nan speur;
`S do cheumaibh treun air sgeith nana ard,
`S tu mathair aigh nan reul


(Greetings, Sun of the seasons, as you walk in the high heavens; with your strong steps upon the high void you are the joyous mother of the stars.)

- Carmina Gadelica.

Here is a small vision, a basket of sparkling jewels. Each one is carefully collected and preserved then set within a volume barely a hands breadth in stature. The rhythmic echo, the ebb and flow of these traditional Gaelic prayers, invocations and native songs glide effortlessly across the pages and enchant the reader. These assorted gems come, by virtue of a Celtic scholar Alexander Carmicheal, from his historical collection of verses called the `Carmina Gadelica.' As a whole they represent the ancient oral tradition of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, as old and translucent as sea foam. Alexander Carmichael, was a Scottish civil servant born in 1832 and educated at Greenock and Edinburgh. He spent the greater portion of his life working and traveling amongst the shy, reserved and insular Gaels of the Isles, of Arran, Uist, Skye and Oban. His passion for Gaelic poetry, prayers, customs and traditions, much of which still remained amongst these isolated communities in his time, inspired and delighted him.

Yet before Carmichael the verses only remained floating within the minds, and drifting from the lips of these reclusive folk. Content with traditional crafts, farming, fishing and celebrating the seasons of their life. Alexander Carmichael came and saw an eclipse of the old ways. With a passionate and dedicated vision he began collecting and preserving this tradition, what he envisaged as an important legacy of Celtic culture that could not be allowed to wither away. Eventually his efforts were published in two volumes in 1900, the mellow and matured heritage of generations. Despite his death in 1912 a further two volumes were published in 1940, and a fifth in 1954. Surprisingly many of the islanders never desired that their verses be recorded in print. Yet, had Carmichael not been so bold we may never have experienced the pleasure and refined joy of these spiritual dedications, or have opportunity to see the profound and ecstatic insight of a beautiful people. The delicate voice may well have disappeared, drifting into an ocean of silence like a rare mist.

Here are 64 of those miniature visions, as whispers from the past recited as cycles of time in eternity, in honor of the infinite. We experience the ages of life, craft, skill and pride of work, the heart and hearth, wonders of the natural world, omens, sorrows, lamentations, the solitary prayers of wanderer's across a sandy shore; songs of the soul that pierce the ordinary and illuminate deeper mystery, the magic and the miraculous. From dawn till dusk these prayers honor, marvel, and evoke a tranquil reflection of life, love and community. But, this is a community in the greatest possible sense; it is the communion of souls within the mansions of the cosmos, of the sea's crashing and flowing, a broad perspective of sky, the brilliant sun and reflective shadows of the moon, a glorious king enthroned, divine maidens, fair spirits, the multiple blessings of birth and the tears of death... like birds we fly across limitless clouds of inspiration to a land of milk, honey and gold, holy angels are the guardians, sacred herbs are the remedy for our ills.

124 pages provide a lifetime of contemplation, glowing mantra's to embolden the soul, seed-words for meditation, security in a silvering age, a taste of sweet senses and more than a few reasons to burst into a melodic chant... the song of a dancing sun on our lips!
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