Join author Rennie McDougall in the R&D Store as he discusses Nonstop Bodies, a new social history of New York through dance

“Nonstop Bodies is a vital new social history of New York. Rennie McDougall moves from uptown to downtown and from ballrooms to sidewalks; from icons of modern dance to the mambo-mad Palladium; from club kids to ballet to breakers in the Bronx. In doing so, he reveals dance to be an unexcelled lens through which to understand the tensions — between high culture and low, identity and difference, the monied and less so — that make the city go.” – Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, author of Names of New York.

In charting the stories and interconnected histories of different forms of dance, Nonstop Bodies: How Dance Shaped New York City (Abrams Press) reveals how each was fundamentally shaped by the social and historical forces of the time, as movements rumbling through the rest of the country came to a head in the singular density and diversity of New York City.

Martha Graham shares a lineage with the West African dances being transported to New York stages by Katherine Dunham; George Balanchine took inspiration from the acrobatic feats of the Nicholas Brothers and other dancers honing their skills in Harlem’s ballrooms; partnered dancing at the Palladium influenced Jerome Robbins whose Broadway choreography preceded the individualized revelries of the disco. McDougall argues not only that dance can act as a mirror to the larger narratives of New York and the nation, but that the city itself has proven uniquely capable of creating innovations in how we move and dance together. Nonstop Bodies is more than a history — it is an exploration of movement that captures the ways in which dance has acted as both a catalyst and reflection of the city’s culture, politics, and heart.

Can’t make the event? Pre-order copies of Nonstop Bodies and we’ll get your book signed for you.

Rennie McDougall is a writer based in Brooklyn. His writing has appeared in T Magazine, The Village Voice, Lapham’s Quarterly, Gay Magazine/Medium, frieze.com, hyperallergic.com, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, and Slate, among others. He received an Observer Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism in 2018 and was named a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for non-fiction literature in 2023. Nonstop Bodies is his first book.