Through examining the past and applying it to his times, Horst gives modern dancers new ways to study movement. As Janet Soares remarks in the Foreword to Horst's text, "By returning to a time when court composers wrote specifically for dance, Horst felt that a renewed independence could emerge with dance taking a predominant position." A well-respected text when originally published in 1937, Pre-Classic Dance Forms remains an important resource for students, choreographers, stages directors, dance historians and musicologists.