pt. 1. Musical collaboration for a new era in dance. Overview : the question of using old music for new dance. How to revive dancing : music and the dancer / Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. Dancing to Beethoven's Seventh symphony / Isadora Duncan. Music for Isadora Duncan's dance / Baird Hastings. The dance poems of Michio Ito : The white peacock, to music by Griffes / Helen Caldwell. The Denishawn aesthetic : America and the dance, music visualization / Denishawn program. On dancing to Bach : Humphrey-Weidman programs / Norman Cazden. American music and composers : what dancers need / Ted Shawn

pt. 2. Creative procedures and ingredients. Overview : some challenges of collaboration, and composers debate about what works. Music and dance : the new generation's change in methods / Louis Horst. Louis Horst / Henry Gilfond. A quiet genius himself : a dance teacher's tribute to Louis Horst / Gertrude Lippincott. Synthesizing music and the dance / Wallingford Riegger. Sensing the dancer's impulse : a dancer talks about the art of composer-accompanists / Ernestine Stodelle. My scores for modern dance : tragedy and comedy / Vivian Fine. The race of life : my side of the story : the relationship of music and dance / Doris Humphrey. Under way : composing for Martha Graham : details of contemporary collaboration / Lehman Engel. Relating music and concert dance : an idea for elastic form / Henry Cowell. Sound-companion for dance : Henry Cowell's music / Norman Lloyd. Composing for the dance : an overview of procedures, personal experiences, and advice to collaborators / Norman Lloyd

pt. 3. Toward new "American" styles. Overview : defining what makes music "American" and common musical concerns of ballet and modern dance. The cosmopolitan scene of the 1920s and '30s : avant-garde experiments, jazz, and symphonic ballet scores / Verna Arvey. The theatrical Thirties / Virgil Thomson. Virgil Thomson's later reflections / Katherine Teck. Editorial : Dance and American composers / Dance observer [magazine]. Overview : Drawing upon folk music and wartime patriotism. People dancing / Woody Guthrie. Sophie Maslow and Woody / Nora Guthrie. Music for Martha / Agnes de Mille. The commission for Appalachian spring / Aaron Copland. Aaron Copland's America / Gail Levin. Appalachian spring : an appreciation fifty-four years later / Richard Philp. Overview : Building on the Horton experience. Lester Horton : of money, music, and motivation / Larry Warren and others who knew him. Kenneth Klauss : musician for California dancers / Katherine Teck. Carmen de Lavallade : dancing to many musical styles / Katherine Teck. Instructions : how to play the drums / Alvin Ailey. Alvin Ailey's Revelations / Jennifer Dunning. How Revelations came to be / Alvin Ailey, with A. Peter Bailey

pt. 4. Instruments, technology, and the avant-garde. Overview : Expanding timbre possibilities with percussion : vocalization, electronic instruments, and the sounds around us. Percussion music and its relation to the modern dance / Franziska Boas. East Indian tala music / Henry Cowell. Choric sound for the dance / Lehman Engel. Goal : new music, new dance / John Cage. Electronic music for Doris Humphrey's Theatre piece no. 2 / Otto Luening. My total theater concept / Alwin Nikolais. Experimental music / John Cage. Communication / John Cage. Dancing with the avant-garde / Carolyn Brown

pt. 5. Wellsprings of creative collaboration. Overview : Diverse methods and aesthetic ideas. "Fun" in music and the dance / Leonard Bernstein. Why I make dances / Paul Taylor. My intention to serve Spanish ballet serves American modern dancers instead / Carlos Surinach. Music for the modern dance : meditations on melodies, modes, emotion, and creation / Lou Harrison. Notes on new music for the dance : choices open to collaborators at midcentury / Lucia Dlugoszewski

pt. 6. Dance artists speak to future generations. Overview : Postwar trends, and music in the training of dancers. My love affair with music / Erick Hawkins. Finding your own voice / Bessie Schönberg. Music and dancing / Paul Draper. Dancers are musicians are dancers / José Limón

Afterword : Creativity in one's own time.