Download or read book A Life Well Danced Maria Zybina s Russian Heritage Her Legacy of Classical Ballet and Character Dance Across Europe written by Jane Gall Spooner and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-01-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relationships between dancers and their teachers, and classical ballet pedagogy through the life of Maria Zybina. It was inspired by the author’s direct connection through Zybina and her teachers.
Download or read book A Life Well Danced Maria Zybina s Russian Heritage Her Legacy of Classical Ballet and Character Dance Across Europe written by Jane Gall Spooner and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2022-12-20 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relatively little has been written about how ballet teachers become teachers themselves and how each generation passes on its experience to the next. The teacher-dancer relationship within the context of the Russian classical tradition is a theme of “A Life Well Danced”. It is presented through the lens of a young girl who lived through emigration and displacement at the time of the Russian Revolution, who experienced this again as an adult after the Second World War and who went on to establish a successful career as a teacher, examiner and choreographer. The book also touches on the teaching and performing of European character dance which is also an under-appreciated field. “A Life Well Danced” was inspired by the author’s direct connection through Zybina and her teachers, Nicolai Legat in London, Evgenia Eduardova in Berlin and Elena Poliakova in Belgrade, to the flowering of Russian classical ballet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Marius Petipa was choreographing works such as Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. An interview with Zybina provides the framework for material in memoirs and first-hand accounts that are drawn upon for their lively descriptions of the Imperial Theatre School and the Mariinsky ballet company in St. Petersburg. Born in Moscow, Zybina and her family fled to Europe at the time of the Russian Revolution. Her first marriage to an English diplomat took her to Belgrade and a career as a dancer and ballet mistress in Yugoslavia. The Second World War saw her still in Yugoslavia with her second husband when they and a number of close friends worked in intelligence on behalf of the Allies. A strange twist of events, brought them to England where Zybina established her ballet school and became an examiner for the Federation of Russian Classical Ballet and the Society of Russian Style Ballet Schools.
Download or read book Like a Bomb Going Off written by Janice Ross and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone has heard of George Balanchine. Few outside Russia know of Leonid Yakobson, Balanchine's contemporary, who remained in Lenin's Russia and survived censorship during the darkest days of Stalin. Like Shostakovich, Yakobson suffered for his art and yet managed to create a singular body of revolutionary dances that spoke to the Soviet condition. His work was often considered so culturally explosive that it was described as like a bomb going off.” Based on untapped archival collections of photographs, films, and writings about Yakobson's work in Moscow and St. Petersburg for the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets, as well as interviews with former dancers, family, and audience members, this illuminating and beautifully written biography brings to life a hidden history of artistic resistance in the USSR through this brave artist, who struggled against officially sanctioned anti-Semitism while offering a vista of hope.
Download or read book Alla Osipenko written by Joel Lobenthal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alla Osipenko is the gripping story of one of history's greatest ballerinas, a courageous rebel who paid the price for speaking truth to the Soviet state. A cast of characters drawn from all sectors of Soviet and post-Perestroika society makes this biography as encyclopedic and encompassing as a great Russian novel.
Download or read book Ballet s Magic Kingdom written by A. L. Volynskiĭ and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Akim Volynsky was a Russian literary critic, journalist, and art historian who became Saint Petersburgs liveliest and most prolific ballet critic in the early part of the twentieth century. This book, the first English edition of his provocative and influential writings, provides a striking look at life inside the world of Russian ballet at a crucial era in its history. Stanley J. Rabinowitz selects and translates forty of Volynskys articlesvivid, eyewitness accounts that sparkle with details about the careers and personalities of such dance luminaries as Anna Pavlova, Mikhail Fokine, Tamara Karsavina, and George Balanchine, at that time a young dancer in the Maryinsky company whose keen musical sense and creative interpretive power Volynsky was one of the first to recognize. Rabinowitz also translates Volynskys magnum opus, The Book of Exaltations, an elaborate meditation on classical dance technique that is at once a primer and an ideological treatise. Throughout his writings, Rabinowitz argues in his critical introduction, which sets Volynskys life and work against the backdrop of the principal intellectual currents of his time, Volynsky emphasizes the spiritual and ethereal qualities of ballet.
Download or read book Dancing in Petersburg written by Mathilde Kschessinska and published by . This book was released on 2019-03-20 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mathilde Kschessinska, Prima ballerina of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre in pre-Revolutionary Russia, tells her life story in these moving and dramatic memoirs.
Download or read book Dancing Into the Unknown written by Tamara Finch and published by David Leonard. This book was released on 2007 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tamara Tchinarova was born in Romania in 1919 and began her dance training in Paris with emigre ballerinas from the Imperial Russian Ballet. This autobiography highlights her incredible life in Romania and her worldwide dancing career, the tempestuous marriage to actor Peter Finch, and her involvement in his affair with Vivien Leigh."
Download or read book Dancing In Petersburg written by Mathilde Kschessinska and published by Da Capo Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 1977-08-21 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dancing on Water written by Elena Tchernichova and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dancing on Water is both a personal coming-of-age story and a sweeping look at ballet life in Russia and the United States during the golden age of dance. Elena Tchernichova takes us from her childhood during the siege of Leningrad to her mother's alcoholism and suicide, and from her adoption by Kirov ballerina Tatiana Vecheslova, who entered her into the state ballet school, to her career in the American Ballet Theatre. As a student and young dancer with the Kirov, she witnessed the company's achievements as a citadel of classic ballet, home to legendary names--Shelest, Nureyev, Dudinskaya, Baryshnikov--but also a hotbed of intrigue and ambition run amok. As ballet mistress of American Ballet Theatre from 1978 to 1990, Elena was called "the most important behind-the-scenes force for change in ballet today," by Vogue magazine. She coached stars and corps de ballet alike, and helped mold the careers of some of the great dancers of the age, including Gelsey Kirkland, Cynthia Gregory, Natalia Makarova, and Alexander Godunov. Dancing on Water is a tour de force, exploring the highest levels of the world of dance.
Download or read book Balanchine the Lost Muse written by Elizabeth Kendall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the first dual biography of the early lives of two key figures in Russian ballet: famed choreographer George Balanchine and his close childhood friend and extraordinary ballerina Liidia (Lidochka) Ivanova. Tracing the lives and friendship of these two dancers from years just before the 1917 Russian Revolution to Balanchine's escape from Russia in 1924, Elizabeth Kendall's Balanchine & the Lost Muse sheds new light on a crucial flash point in the history of ballet. Drawing upon extensive archival research, Kendall weaves a fascinating tale about this decisive period in the life of the man who would become the most influential choreographer in modern ballet. Abandoned by his mother at the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy in 1913 at the age of nine, Balanchine spent his formative years studying dance in Russia's tumultuous capital city. It was there, as he struggled to support himself while studying and performing, that Balanchine met Ivanova. A talented and bold dancer who grew close to the Bolshevik elite in her adolescent years, Ivanova was a source of great inspiration to Balanchine--both during their youth together, and later in his life, after her mysterious death just days before they had planned to leave Russia together in 1924. Kendall shows that although Balanchine would have a great number of muses, many of them lovers, the dark beauty of his dear friend Lidochka would inspire much of his work for years to come. Part biography and part cultural history, Balanchine & the Lost Muse presents a sweeping account of the heyday of modern ballet and the culture behind the unmoored ideals, futuristic visions, and human decadence that characterized the Russian Revolution.
Download or read book The Master of the Russian Ballet the Memoirs of Cav Enrico Cecchetti written by Olga Racster and published by London : Hutchinson & Company. This book was released on 1923 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imperial Dancer written by Coryne Hall and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-05-30 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vivacious Mathilde Kschessinska (1872-1971) was the mistress of three Russian Grand Dukes and the greatest ballerina of her generation. As a young girl, she had enjoyed romantic troika rides, and passionate nights, with the future Tsar Nicholas II. When their relationship ended Mathilde began simultaneous affairs with Nicholas's cousin, Grand Duke Sergei and Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich. When her son was born in 1902 nobody knew for certain the identity of the father - except that he was undoubtedly a Romanov. In ballet, she partnered the great Vaslav Nijinsky, became a force to be reckoned with in the Imperial Theatre and, later in life, taught Margot Fonteyn. Mathilde Kschessinska is mentioned in almost every book about the Romanovs but so many myths surround her that she has become the stuff of legend. It is said a hoard of Romanov treasure lies buried under her house in St Petersburg and that a secret passage connected her home to the Winter Palace. Even her own memoirs, published in the 1960s, are as much fantasy as reality. The real story, which this book will reveal, lies in what Mathilde did not say.
Download or read book Behind the Scenes at the Ballets Russes written by Michael Meylac and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-30 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ballets Russes was perhaps the most iconic, yet at the same time mysterious, ballet company of the twentieth century. Inspired by the unique vision of their founder Sergei Diaghilev, the company gained a large international following. In the mid-twentieth century - during the tumultuous years of World War II and the Cold War - the Ballets Russes companies kept the spirit and traditions of Russian ballet alive in the West, touring extensively in America, Europe and Australia. This important new book uncovers previously-unseen interviews and provides insights into the lives of the great figures of the age - from the dancers Anna Pavlova and Alicia Markova to the choreographers Leonide Massine, George Balanchine and Anton Dolin. The dancers' own words reveal what life was really like for the stars of the Ballets Russes and provide fascinating new insights into one of the most vibrant and creative groups of artists of the modern age.
Download or read book Marina Svetlova written by Michael Limoli and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2019-01-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marina Svetlova: A Tribute is a book that is intended to engage the professional dancer, as well as the layman, to the dance. The work celebrates the career of one of the most influential ballerinas of the twentieth century. The journey begins with her days as a baby ballerina in the de Basil Original Ballet Russe company, culminating in a tenure as professor of ballet at Indiana University Bloomington. Her intermediary accomplishments in the arts, such as having been named the prima ballerina of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Ballet while enjoying a decade of tours with the Svetlova Dance Ensemble, are explored, along with an appreciation for a lifetime of guest appearances. She appeared around the world as a guest artist with major ballet companies, coupled with frequent performances on television shows such as the Firestone Hour and the Bell television show. Svetlova’s legacy in the dance world is extensively documented in this volume by the inclusion of reviews of many of her performances and is accompanied by a host of stunning pictures produced by several of the most important dance photographers of her day.
Download or read book Catherine Littlefield written by Sharon Skeel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While she is best remembered today as founder of the Philadelphia Ballet and the director and driving force behind the famous Littlefield School of Ballet, from which Balanchine drew the nucleus for his School of American Ballet, Catherine Littlefield (1905-51) and her oeuvre were in many ways emblematic of the full representation of dance throughout entertainments of the first half of the 20th century. From her early work as a teenager dancing for Florenz Ziegfeld to her later work in choreographing extravagant ice skating shows, a remarkable dance with 90 bicyclists for the 1940 World's Fair, and on television as resident choreographer for The Jimmy Durante Show, Littlefield was amongst the first choreographers to bring concert dance to broader venues, and her legacy lives on today in her enduring influence on generations of American ballet dancers. As the first biography of Littlefield, Catherine Littlefield: A Life in Dance traces her life in full from birth through childhood experiences dancing on the Academy of Music's grand stage, and from her foundation of the groundbreaking Philadelphia Ballet Company in 1935 to her later work in television and beyond. Littlefield counted among her many glamorous friends and colleagues writer Zelda Fitzgerald, conductor Leopold Stokowski, and composer Kurt Weill. This biography also provides an engrossing portrait of the remarkable Littlefield family, many of whom were instrumental to Catherine's success. With the unflagging support of her generous husband and indomitable mother, Littlefield gave shape to the course of American ballet in the 20th century long before Balanchine arrived in the United States.
Download or read book The Great Russian Dancers written by Gennady Smakov and published by New York : Knopf. This book was released on 1984 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A century of classical ballet danced by 33 stellar exponents of Russian style, from the days of Petipa and Pavlova to the era of Baryshnikov, Makarova, and Nureyev"--Jacket.
Download or read book Bronislava Nijinska early Memoirs written by Bronislava Nijinska and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, Bronislava Nijinska: Early Memoirs--originally published in 1981--has been hailed by critics, scholars, and dancers alike as the definitive source of firsthand information on the early life of the great Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950). This memoir, recounted here with verve and stunning detail by the late Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972)--Nijinsky's sister and herself a major twentieth-century dancer and leading choreographer of the Diaghilev era--offers a season-by-season chronicle of their childhood and early artistic development. Written with feeling and charm, these insightful memoirs provide an engrossingly readable narrative that has the panoramic sweep and colorful vitality of a Russian novel.
