Our Love Affair With Dance

Book excerpt: The creation of this work is an invitation to step into the world of the dancer and vicariously experience the passion and motivation for the dance arts. This book’s focus centers on the power and spirituality of the dance told through the life stories of two dance artists, Magda and Gertrud Hahn. This work additionally invites the reader to celebrate the sublime and nuanced inner and outer experiences achieved through dancing. Foremost, in these pages you will accompany two sisters, who faced many challenges throughout their lives, but were sustained and inspired by their love of dance. The Hanova School of Modern Studies in Body Sculpture and the Classical Dance occurred throughout the twentieth century on three continents around the world and may be largely forgotten, but a record of the Hahn sisters’ lives may be seen as one of many important personal narratives to be read in order to understand the history and formation of the modern dance we enjoy today.