New Books In Music

Gertrude Hoffman is one of many entertainers who were big stars in vaudeville before World War I, but whose celebrity faded as the American public was seduced by radio and film after the Great War. Sunny Stalter-Pace recounts Hoffmann’s groundbreaking career and contextualizes her work as a dancer, comedienne, producer, and choreographer in the American cultural landscape in Imitation Artist: Gertrude Hoffman’s Life in Vaudeville and Dance (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Hoffman brought European modern dance to a mass American audience through her imitations, vaudeville revues, and touring show recreating some of the Ballet Russes’s iconic dances. She served as a conduit between the avant-garde and commercial theater through a deft combination of highbrow and lowbrow in each of her projects. More than a simply a stage performer, Hoffman was also the first woman stage manager and choreographer on Broadway, and a prolific producer both during and after her stage career was over. Intersecting with figures