The Anatomy of Art: Unlocking the Creative Process for Theatre and Dance

By Alexandra Beller

The Anatomy of Art reconnects you with the creative current already moving through you. A choose-your-own-adventure for performing artists, it offers 1000+ questions, frameworks, and field-tested scores that reveal options, deepen rigor, and help you trust yourself. Twelve elements-Time, Space, Relationship, Meaning, Environment, Process, Facts, Faith, Communication, Material, Context & Culture, and Priorities-create a working map for practice and performance. Built from three decades in devised dance and theater, it fits complex rooms and real lives: a ten-minute spark, a day of practice, a season-long arc.

This is a companion for the first step and the begin-again-listening to desire, doubt, and faith while calibrating environment, collaborators, and audience. When the work asks for more than you can name, these pages offer discerning questions, actionable practices, and grounded companionship-cultivating the courage to meet yourself, hear your voice, and make art that matters to you.
With a preface by Marisa Tomei and contributions from Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Deborah Hay, Kate Hamill, Liz Lerman, Bebe Miller, and others, offering lenses on context, care, and craft.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1350564184
• ISBN13: 9781350564183
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.2"