NEW LAROUSSE SPEAKS LA DANSE.

Five years of collaboration among 140 international specialists has produced the French-language Dictionnaire de la Danse, edited by historian and former dancer Philippe Le Moal. Published by Larousse and weighing in at 800-plus pages, this monumental project is the first of its kind to be printed in France in more than thirty years.

"This dictionary is neither a history book, nor an instruction manual," said Le Moal at the book's launch party in November. "Rather, it is an invitation to movement, designed to activate the reader's thoughts, eyes, and imagination." With more than four thousand entries and five hundred illustrations, the dictionary covers the evolution of Western dance from the Renaissance through the twentieth century, including jazz dance.

"It's fabulous, wonderful, that for once, they have included jazz dance!" said American choreographer Rick Odums, director of the Rick Odums International School of Jazz Dance in Pads. "There are three things that America has given the cultural word: jazz music, jazz dance, and musical comedies. With this dictionary, jazz dance has finally taken its place in history."

The dictionary is divided into three sections. The first, "The World of Dance," is dedicated to choreographers, dancers, directors, writers, philosophers, artists, and learning centers of the past two hundred years. It is followed by "The Works," focusing on the ballets, musicals, lyrical works, and dance produced during that time period. The third section, "Dance Expressions," is devoted to vocabulary, from aesthetic concepts to dance notation to professional terms.

The tome is available only in French from Larousse, famed for its dictionaries and reference books. It retails for five hundred and fifty francs, or about eighty-five dollars.