His photographs of New York streets, people, and architecture have that combination of intense engagement with and detachment from subjects that characterizes the work of many renowned documentary artists of modern city life.
His black and white photographs are given a special place in the book, accompanying individual chapters and also comprising a separate section at the end of the text.
These attempts to redefine movement and dance are perhaps best exemplified by the development of Contact Improvisation, with its mixture of randomness, spontaneity, and carefully focused give and take between dancers.
While Alexander did not achieve the broad recognition of some of his contemporaries such as Peter Moore, his work is an important contribution to the documentation of experimental dance and performance of the seventies and eighties.
He photographed most of the major experimental choreographers, dancers, and performers of the period, including Stuart Sherman, Kenneth King, Simone Forti, David Gordon, Valda Setterfield, Laura Foreman, Carter Frank, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Douglass Dunn, Rudy Perez, Meredith Monk, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and many others.
The collection includes thousands of slides of Manhattan dating from this period, many of which reveal Alexander's interest in ordinary street scenes and people.