In the American vein: a sheat of recent books and DVDs.

Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance By Roger Copeland. New York: Routledge, 2004. 304 pp. Illustrated. $28.95 (paper).

Thirty-five years of the author's Cunningham-watching and intense absorption in the artistic currents of his time have generated this searching and provocative assessment of the dance-choreographer's exalted place in the 20th-century pantheon. For Copeland, Cunningham remains not only the most controversial creative force in contemporary movement, but also the most misunderstood.

In repudiating the primitivist roots of much modern dance, Cunningham, claims Copeland, aligned himself with the cool, objective, ironic strain of abstraction that arose in the 1950s and flourished in the succeeding decades. Although in his dances he remains as indifferent to identity politics as he does to narrative structure and conventional collaboration, Cunningham's choreography more than that of his contemporaries, mirrors, in its apparent lack of linear cogency, the intense urban energy of this country. This is the characteristic that most allies him with George Balanchine. Cunningham's reliance on chance procedures, his use of electronic music, and the independence of the collaborative elements may explain why his dances have not become dated in a world marked by dissociation and information overload.

Copeland musters considerable insights, too, into Cunningham's collaborators, principally composer John Cage and visual artist Robert Rauschenberg. Even though he almost worries the modernist/postmodernist schism to death and his powers of persuasion occasionally fail (the ear continues to reject Cunningham's commissioned scores, despite their lofty pedigrees), Copeland's book will bring joy to Cunningham partisans. It may even convert more than one skeptic to the cause.

Performance: Live Art Since the 60s

Performance: Live Art Since the 60s By RoseLee Goldberg. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004. 240 pp. Illustrated. $34.95 (paper).

Dance is only one of several disciplines covered in Goldberg's opulently illustrated survey of the trends and accomplishments that have transformed the world's stages in the past 40 years. Every major figure--and the dance entries range from Anna Halprin in 1963 to Saburo Teshigawara in 1995--is represented by telling photographs and annotations. In this reissue of a book originally published in 1998, Goldberg prefaces each section with a succinct, informative essay. She appends a chronicle of landmarks in the avant-garde performance field and an invaluable dictionary of artists' biographies. A coffee table book for very hip coffee tables.

Speaking of Dance: Twelve Contemporary Choreographers on Their Craft

Speaking of Dance: Twelve Contemporary Choreographers on Their Craft By Joyce Morgenroth. New York: Routledge, 2004. 225 pp. Illustrated. $19.95 (paper).

Interview collections arrive annually in the dance world, but Morgenroth stakes her claim on our attention in a couple of ways. First, she has removed her voice from these inquiries, stitching her subjects' responses into smooth narratives. Then, despite a sprinkling of frequently interviewed choreographers (Cunningham, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones), Morgenroth has gone afield for sessions with less commonly queried modernists like Ann Carlson, John Jasperse, Trisha Brown, Meredith Monk, David Gordon, Anna Halprin, and Eiko Otake (of Eiko and Koma).

Morgenroth's subjects seem uninhibited and startlingly candid throughout. Autobiography prevails over shop talk, and every voice flickers with creative passion. Yet, at least one of these interviews (with Elizabeth Streb) dates back to 2000; these conversations have lost a measure of immediacy and are fast acquiring the patina of history.

Trisha Brown: Early Works 1966-1979

Trisha Brown: Early Works 1966-1979 ARTPIX Notebooks, two DVDs. Artpix, $20. www.artpix.org

Scholars, choreographers, and aficionados should derive enormous pleasure flour this anthology. ARTPIX has assembled movies and videos of 14 Brown dances, either complete or excerpted, and all are easily accessed. They begin with the movie-projector-on-the-back solo, Homemade, and end with Jonathan Demme's 1986 film of Accumulation with Talking plus Watermotor, a genuine Brown tour de force. These dances, as well as Walking on the Wall, Roof and Fire Piece, and Floor of the Forest (all represented here), illustrate Brown's evolution from Judson Dance Theater into a postmodernist of rare originality and wit. On the second DVD, the choreographer proves the most inviting guide to her own development as she sits for an illustrated, 70-minute interview with art historian Klaus Kertess. The technical quality of the films varies, but rarely has a major dance artist's legacy been so intelligently collected on a couple of silvery discs. One can only hope that ARTPIX will, in the future, lavish its resources on other masters of dance modernism.

The Bandwagon

The Bandwagon Warner Video, two DVDs. $24.95. www.dvdwb.com

Among the many delights of Vincente Minnelli's glorious 1952 MGM musical is the choreography of veteran Michael Kidd and the dancing of Fred Astaire as an over-the-hill hoofer attempting a Broadway comeback. "A Shine on Your Shoes," the "Dancing in the Dark" duet with Cyd Charisse, and the "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plans" number with Jack Buchanan--true time capsule stuff--represent Astaire's finest post-Ginger work on celluloid. With a droll screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and miraculous songs by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwarz, it's as perfect a musical as ever came from the Hollywood dream factory. Extras (on the second DVD) include documentaries on the making of the film and director Minnelli, plus Charisse's "Two Faced Woman" number, which, for understandable reasons, was dropped from the released film. Still, as they keep telling you in the movie, "That's Entertainment!" Now, when will Warner Video reissue the wonderfully cynical 1955 Gene Kelly-Stanley Donen dance musical, It's Always Fair Weather?