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Book Rooted Jazz Dance

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lindsay Guarino
  • Publisher : University Press of Florida
  • Release : 2022-02-01
  • ISBN : 0813072115
  • Pages : 279 pages

Download or read book Rooted Jazz Dance written by Lindsay Guarino and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Dance Education Organization Ruth Lovell Murray Book Award UNCG | Susan W. Stinson Book Award for Dance Education An African American art form, jazz dance has an inaccurate historical narrative that often sets Euro-American aesthetics and values at the inception of the jazz dance genealogy. The roots were systemically erased and remain widely marginalized and untaught, and the devaluation of its Africanist origins and lineage has largely gone unchallenged. Decolonizing contemporary jazz dance practice, this book examines the state of jazz dance theory, pedagogy, and choreography in the twenty-first century, recovering and affirming the lifeblood of jazz in Africanist aesthetics and Black American culture. Rooted Jazz Dance brings together jazz dance scholars, practitioners, choreographers, and educators from across the United States and Canada with the goal of changing the course of practice in future generations. Contributors delve into the Africanist elements within jazz dance and discuss the role of Whiteness, including Eurocentric technique and ideology, in marginalizing African American vernacular dance, which has resulted in the prominence of Eurocentric jazz styles and the systemic erosion of the roots. These chapters offer strategies for teaching rooted jazz dance, examples for changing dance curricula, and artist perspectives on choreographing and performing jazz. Above all, they emphasize the importance of centering Africanist and African American principles, aesthetics, and values. Arguing that the history of jazz dance is closely tied to the history of racism in the United States, these essays challenge a century of misappropriation and lean into difficult conversations of reparations for jazz dance. This volume overcomes a major roadblock to racial justice in the dance field by amplifying the people and culture responsible for the jazz language. Contributors: LaTasha Barnes | Lindsay Guarino | Natasha Powell | Carlos R.A. Jones | Rubim de Toledo | Kim Fuller | Wendy Oliver | Joanne Baker | Karen Clemente | Vicki Adams Willis | Julie Kerr-Berry | Pat Taylor | Cory Bowles | Melanie George | Paula J Peters | Patricia Cohen | Brandi Coleman | Kimberley Cooper | Monique Marie Haley | Jamie Freeman Cormack | Adrienne Hawkins | Karen Hubbard | Lynnette Young Overby | Jessie Metcalf McCullough | E. Moncell Durden Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Book Beginning Hip Hop Dance

Download or read book Beginning Hip Hop Dance written by E. Moncell Durden and published by Human Kinetics. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its development in the United States in the 1970s, hip-hop has grown to become a global dance phenomenon. In Beginning Hip-Hop Dance With HKPropel Access, students gain a strong foundation and learn the fundamentals of hip-hop techniques as they venture into the exciting world of this dance genre. Written by dance educator, historian, and scholar E. Moncell Durden, Beginning Hip-Hop Dance gives students the opportunity to explore hip-hop history and techniques, foundational information, and significant works and artists; understand the styles and aesthetics of hip-hop dance as a performing art and cultural art form; and learn about the forms of hip-hop dance, such as locking, waacking, popping and boogaloo, and house. The text has related online tools delivered via HKPropel, including 55 video clips that aid students in the practice of the techniques, as well as extended learning activities and prompts for e-journaling to help students understand how the dance form relates to their overall development as a dancer; glossary terms with and without definitions so students can check their knowledge; and chapter review quizzes to help students assess their knowledge and understanding of hip-hop dance and its history, artists, styles, and aesthetics. As students move through the book, they will learn the BEATS method of exploring hip-hop through body, emotion, action, time, and space. This method opens up the creative and expressive qualities of the movements and helps students to appreciate hip-hop as an art form. Students will also learn how to critique a dance performance and create their own personal style of movement to music. Beginning Hip-Hop Dance is a comprehensive resource that provides beginning dance students—dance majors, minors, or general education students with an interest in dance—a solid foundation in this contemporary cultural dance genre. It intertwines visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modes of learning and offers students the techniques and knowledge to build onto the movements that are presented in the book and video clips. Beginning Hip-Hop Dance is the ideal introduction to this exciting dance genre. Beginning Hip-Hop Dance is a part of Human Kinetics’ Interactive Dance Series. The series includes resources for ballet, modern, tap, jazz, musical theater, and hip-hop dance that support introductory dance technique courses taught through dance, physical education, and fine arts departments. Each student-friendly text has related online learning tools including video clips of dance instruction, assignments, and activities. The Interactive Dance Series offers students a collection of guides to learning, performing, and viewing dance. Note: A code for accessing HKPropel is not included with this ebook but may be purchased separately.

Book Dance and Gender

    Book Details:
  • Author : Wendy Oliver
  • Publisher : University Press of Florida
  • Release : 2018-06-11
  • ISBN : 0813063450
  • Pages : 212 pages

Download or read book Dance and Gender written by Wendy Oliver and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2018-06-11 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by exacting methods and hard data, this volume reveals gender dynamics within the dance world in the twenty-first century. It provides concrete evidence about how gender impacts the daily lives of dancers, choreographers, directors, educators, and students through surveys, interviews, analyses of data from institutional sources, and action research studies. Dancers, dance artists, and dance scholars from the United States, Australia, and Canada discuss equity in three areas: concert dance, the studio, and higher education. The chapters provide evidence of bias, stereotyping, and other behaviors that are often invisible to those involved, as well as to audiences. The contributors answer incisive questions about the role of gender in various aspects of the field, including physical expression and body image, classroom experiences and pedagogy, and performance and funding opportunities. The findings reveal how inequitable practices combined with societal pressures can create environments that hinder health, happiness, and success. At the same time, they highlight the individuals working to eliminate discrimination and open up new possibilities for expression and achievement in studios, choreography, performance venues, and institutions of higher education. The dance community can strive to eliminate discrimination, but first it must understand the status quo for gender in the dance world. Wendy Oliver, professor of dance at Providence College, is coeditor of Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches. Doug Risner, professor of dance at Wayne State University, is coeditor of Hybrid Lives of Teaching Artists in Dance and Theatre Arts: A Critical Reader. Contributors: Gareth Belling | Karen Bond | Carolyn Hebert | Eliza Larson | Pamela S. Musil | Wendy Oliver | Katherine Polasek | Doug Risner | Emily Roper | Karen Schupp | Jan Van Dyke

Book The Essential Guide to Jazz Dance

Download or read book The Essential Guide to Jazz Dance written by Dollie Henry and published by The Crowood Press. This book was released on 2019-10-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz dance and its inherent music is recognized as one of the original and most potent art forms of the last two centuries. From its African roots to our present-day global dance community, the jazz idiom has afforded a cross-fertilization with all other artistic, cultural and social representations within the arts industry, providing an accessible dance platform for dancers, teachers and creatives to enjoy both recreationally and professionally. The Essential Guide to Jazz Dance offers a practical and uncomplicated overview to the multi-layered history, practices and development of jazz dance as a creative and artistic dance form. It covers the incredible history and lineage of jazz dance; the innovators, choreographers and dance creatives of the genre; specifics of jazz aesthetic, steps and styles; a detailed breakdown of a practical jazz dance warm-up and technical exercises; creative frameworks to support development of jazz dance expression and aesthetic; performance and improvisation; jazz music and musical interpretation, and finally, choreographing and creating jazz works. With over 230 colour photos and a wealth of tips and advice, this new book will be an ideal reading companion for dancers of all abilities, dance teachers, choreographers as well as all jazz dance enthusiasts.

Book Ballroom  Boogie  Shimmy Sham  Shake

Download or read book Ballroom Boogie Shimmy Sham Shake written by Julie Malnig and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-01-10 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dynamic collection documents the rich and varied history of social dance and the multiple styles it has generated, while drawing on some of the most current forms of critical and theoretical inquiry. The essays cover different historical periods and styles; encompass regional influences from North and South America, Britain, Europe, and Africa; and emphasize a variety of methodological approaches, including ethnography, anthropology, gender studies, and critical race theory. While social dance is defined primarily as dance performed by the public in ballrooms, clubs, dance halls, and other meeting spots, contributors also examine social dance’s symbiotic relationship with popular, theatrical stage dance forms. Contributors are Elizabeth Aldrich, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Yvonne Daniel, Sherril Dodds, Lisa Doolittle, David F. García, Nadine George-Graves, Jurretta Jordan Heckscher, Constance Valis Hill, Karen W. Hubbard, Tim Lawrence, Julie Malnig, Carol Martin, Juliet McMains, Terry Monaghan, Halifu Osumare, Sally R. Sommer, May Gwin Waggoner, Tim Wall, and Christina Zanfagna.

Book Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance

Download or read book Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance written by Jill Flanders Crosby and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using storytelling and performance to explore shared religious expression across continents Through a revolutionary ethnographic approach that foregrounds storytelling and performance as alternative means of knowledge, Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance explores shared ritual traditions between the Anlo-Ewe people of West Africa and their descendants, the Arará of Cuba, who were brought to the island in the transatlantic slave trade. The volume draws on two decades of research in four communities: Dzodze, Ghana; Adjodogou, Togo; and Perico and Agramonte, Cuba. In the ceremonies, oral narratives, and daily lives of individuals at each fieldsite, the authors not only identify shared attributes in religious expression across continents, but also reveal lasting emotional, spiritual, and personal impacts in the communities whose ancestors were ripped from their homeland and enslaved. The authors layer historiographic data, interviews, and fieldnotes with artistic modes such as true fiction, memoir, and choreographed narrative, challenging the conventional nature of scholarship with insights gained from sensorial experience. Including reflections on the making of an art installation based on this research project, the volume challenges readers to imagine the potential of approaching fieldwork as artists. The authors argue that creative methods can convey truths deeper than facts, pointing to new possibilities for collaboration between scientists and artists with relevance to any discipline. Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Book Play the Way You Feel

    Book Details:
  • Author : Kevin Whitehead
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 2020-04-01
  • ISBN : 0190847581
  • Pages : 401 pages

Download or read book Play the Way You Feel written by Kevin Whitehead and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz stories have been entwined with cinema since the inception of jazz film genre in the 1920s, giving us origin tales and biopics, spectacles and low-budget quickies, comedies, musicals, and dramas, and stories of improvisers and composers at work. And the jazz film has seen a resurgence in recent years--from biopics like Miles Ahead and HBO's Bessie, to dramas Whiplash and La La Land. In Play the Way You Feel, author and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead offers a comprehensive guide to these films and other media from the perspective of the music itself. Spanning 93 years of film history, the book looks closely at movies, cartoons, and a few TV shows that tell jazz stories, from early talkies to modern times, with an eye to narrative conventions and common story points. Examining the ways historical films have painted a clear picture of the past or overtly distorted history, Play the Way You Feel serves up capsule discussions of sundry topics including Duke Ellington's social life at the Cotton Club, avant-garde musical practices in 1930s vaudeville, and Martin Scorsese's improvisatory method on the set of New York, New York. Throughout the book, Whitehead brings the same analytical bent and concise, witty language listeners know from his jazz segments on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. He investigates well-known songs, traces the development of the stock jazz film ending, and offers fresh, often revisionist takes on works by such directors as Howard Hawks, John Cassavetes, Shirley Clarke, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Spike Lee, Robert Altman, Woody Allen and Damien Chazelle. In all, Play the Way You Feel is a feast for film-genre fanatics and movie-watching jazz enthusiasts.

Book Dance and Music

    Book Details:
  • Author : Harriet Cavalli
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2001
  • ISBN : 9780813018874
  • Pages : 425 pages

Download or read book Dance and Music written by Harriet Cavalli and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harriet Cavalli, internationally recognized as one of the most talented and experienced specialists in the art of music for dancers and dance teachers, presents here the definitive book on accompaniment, as well as her personal - often humorous - look behind the scenes at the world of dance. The text is enhanced by diagrams and 83 complete musical examples, providing a wealth of repertoire choices.

Book Broadway  Balanchine  and Beyond

Download or read book Broadway Balanchine and Beyond written by Bettijane Sills and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this memoir of a roller-coaster career on the New York stage, former actor and dancer Bettijane Sills offers a highly personal look at the art and practice of George Balanchine, one of ballet's greatest choreographers, and the inner workings of his world-renowned company during its golden years. Sills recounts her years as a child actor in television and on Broadway, a career choice largely driven by her mother, and describes her transition into pursuing her true passion: dance. She was a student in Balanchine's School of American Ballet throughout her childhood and teen years, until her dream was achieved. She was invited to join New York City Ballet in 1961 as a member of the corps de ballet and worked her way up to the level of soloist. Winningly honest and intimate, Sills lets readers peek behind the curtains to see a world that most people have never experienced firsthand. She tells stories of taking classes with Balanchine, dancing in the original casts of some of his most iconic productions, working with a number of the company's most famous dancers, and participating in the company's first Soviet Union tour during the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis. She walks us through her years in New York City Ballet first as a member of the corps de ballet, then a soloist dancing some principal roles, finally as one of the "older" dancers teaching her roles to newcomers while being encouraged to retire. She reveals the unglamorous parts of tour life, jealousy among company members, and Balanchine's complex relationships with women. She talks about Balanchine's insistence on thinness in his dancers and her own struggles with dieting. Her fluctuations in weight influenced her roles and Balanchine's support for her--a cycle that contributed to the end of her dancing career. Now a professor of dance who has educated hundreds of students on Balanchine's style and legacy, Sills reflects on the highs and lows of a career indelibly influenced by fear of failure and fear of success--by the bright lights of theater and the man who shaped American ballet.

Book Being a Ballerina

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gavin Larsen
  • Publisher : University Press of Florida
  • Release : 2021-04-27
  • ISBN : 081306595X
  • Pages : 268 pages

Download or read book Being a Ballerina written by Gavin Larsen and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist, the Arts Club of Washington Marfield Prize A look inside a dancer’s world Inspiring, revealing, and deeply relatable, Being a Ballerina is a firsthand look at the realities of life as a professional ballet dancer. Through episodes from her own career, Gavin Larsen describes the forces that drive a person to study dance; the daily balance that dancers navigate between hardship and joy; and the dancer’s continual quest to discover who they are as a person and as an artist. Starting with her arrival as a young beginner at a class too advanced for her, Larsen tells how the embarrassing mistake ended up helping her learn quickly and advance rapidly. In other stories of her early teachers, training, and auditions, she explains how she gradually came to understand and achieve what she and her body were capable of. Larsen then re-creates scenes from her experiences in dance companies, from unglamorous roles to exhilarating performances. Working as a ballerina was shocking and scary at first, she says, recalling unexpected injuries, leaps of faith, and her constant struggle to operate at the level she wanted—but full of enormously rewarding moments. Larsen also reflects candidly on her difficult decision to retire at age 35. An ideal read for aspiring dancers, Larsen’s memoir will also delight experienced dance professionals and fascinate anyone who wonders what it takes to live a life dedicated to the perfection of the art form.

Book Jazz Among the Discourses

    Book Details:
  • Author : Krin Gabbard
  • Publisher : Duke University Press
  • Release : 1995
  • ISBN : 9780822315964
  • Pages : 308 pages

Download or read book Jazz Among the Discourses written by Krin Gabbard and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employing modes of criticism and theory that have transformed study in the humanities, this title addresses questions seldom if ever raised in jazz writing: What are the implications of building jazz history around the medium of the phonograph record? Why did jazz writers first make the claim that jazz is an art?

Book Jazz Dance

    Book Details:
  • Author : Marshall Stearns
  • Publisher : Da Capo Press
  • Release : 1994-03-22
  • ISBN : 9780306805530
  • Pages : 516 pages

Download or read book Jazz Dance written by Marshall Stearns and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1994-03-22 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The phrase jazz dance has a special meaning for professionals who dance to jazz music (they use it to describe non-tap body movement); and another meaning for studios coast to coast teaching 'Modern Jazz Dance' (a blend of Euro-American styles that owes little to jazz and less to jazz rhythms). However, we are dealing here with what may eventually be referred to as jazz dance, and we could not think of a more suitable title. "The characteristic that distinguishes American vernacular dance--as does jazz music--is swing, which can be heard, felt, and seen, but defined only with great difficulty. . . ." --from the Introduction

Book Onstage with Martha Graham

Download or read book Onstage with Martha Graham written by Stuart Hodes and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2020-12-14 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When World War II was over, a young bomber pilot with an itch for movement and action hung up his cap and learned another way to fly. Onstage with Martha Graham is the story of Stuart Hodes, a versatile and influential dancer who got his start with Martha Graham, an icon of modern dance. His memoir is a rare firsthand view of the dance world in the 1940s and through the end of the twentieth century. One of the few male dancers in Graham’s company—and in the New York dance scene at the time—Hodes offers a unique perspective and a one-of-a-kind narrative. He describes how he fell into the art by chance, happening to walk into Graham’s studio one day. He was soon hooked. He documents his experiences, travels, passions, and loves while learning from and performing with Graham, during which time he saw most of the United States, much of Europe, and some of Asia. Advancing quickly, he eventually danced as Graham’s partner in Appalachian Spring, Deaths and Entrances, Every Soul Is a Circus, and Errand into the Maze. In his portrait of Martha Graham, who was the center of his dancing world, Hodes recounts conversations, revelations, bouts of temper and creativity, the daily ritual of deeply physical dancing, and the never-ending search for artistic validity. Direct, often humorous, and always authentic, Hodes shares his delight in dance as both hard work and a fantastic adventure.

Book Hot Feet and Social Change

Download or read book Hot Feet and Social Change written by Kariamu Welsh and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-12-23 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The popularity and profile of African dance have exploded across the African diaspora in the last fifty years. Hot Feet and Social Change presents traditionalists, neo-traditionalists, and contemporary artists, teachers, and scholars telling some of the thousands of stories lived and learned by people in the field. Concentrating on eight major cities in the United States, the essays challenges myths about African dance while demonstrating its power to awaken identity, self-worth, and community respect. These voices of experience share personal accounts of living African traditions, their first encounters with and ultimate embrace of dance, and what teaching African-based dance has meant to them and their communities. Throughout, the editors alert readers to established and ongoing research, and provide links to critical contributions by African and Caribbean dance experts. Contributors: Ausettua Amor Amenkum, Abby Carlozzo, Steven Cornelius, Yvonne Daniel, Charles “Chuck” Davis, Esailama G. A. Diouf, Indira Etwaroo, Habib Iddrisu, Julie B. Johnson, C. Kemal Nance, Halifu Osumare, Amaniyea Payne, William Serrano-Franklin, and Kariamu Welsh

Book Howling Near Heaven

Download or read book Howling Near Heaven written by Marcia B. Siegel and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than four decades, Twyla Tharp has been a phenomenon in American dance, a choreographer who not only broke the rules but refused to repeat her own successes. At the conclusion of Howling Near Heaven, Marcia Siegel writes about the thrill of watching Tharp choreograph in 1991: "Tharp's movement can be planned or spontaneous, personal, funny, hard as hell, precise enough to look thrown away. She doesn't so much invent or create it, she prepares for it. Crusty, driven, demanding, and admiring, she hurls challenges at the dancers. Brave, virtuosic, and cheerful, they volley back what she gives them and more. She watches them. They watch her. It's the most subtle form of competition and cooperation, a process so intuitive, so intimate, that no one can say whose dance it is in the end, and none of the parties to that dance can be removed without endangering its identity. The same is true for all theatrical dance making, all over the world, only most of it isn't so inspired or obsessed." Starting in the rebellious 1960s, Tharp tried her creative wings on minimalism, pedestrianism, and Dada, then abandoned both the avant-garde and the established modern dance. She thrilled a new audience with her witty version of jazz in Eight Jelly Rolls, then merged her dancers with the Joffrey Ballet for the sensational Deuce Coupe, to the music of the Beach Boys. She explored the classical world in Push Comes to Shove, for the American Ballet Theater and the celebrated Russian virtuoso Mikhail Baryshnikov. For her touring company in the 1970s and 1980s, an unprecedented fusion of modern dancers and ballet dancers, she created a superb repertory that included the theatrical full-length work The Catherine Wheel, the ballroom duets Nine Sinatra Songs, and the company showcase Baker's Dozen. Tharp has made movies, television specials, and nearly one hundred riveting dance works. Movin' Out, the dance show that reflected on the Vietnam era using the music of Billy Joel, ran on Broadway for three years and won Tharp a Tony award for Best Choreography. Howling Near Heaven is the first in-depth study of Twyla Tharp's unique, restless creativity, the story of a choreographer who refused to be pigeonholed and the dancers who accompanied her as she sped across the frontiers of dance.

Book Days on Earth

Download or read book Days on Earth written by Marcia B. Siegel and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in paperback, Days on Earth--originally published in 1988 (Yale University Press)--traces the dance career and artistic development of one of the founders of American modern dance. In this biography of dance pioneer Doris Humphrey, Marcia B. Siegel follows Humphrey's career from her days with the Denishawn Company (among fellos students like Martha Graham) to her creative partnership with Charles Weidman to her tenure as artistic director of protégé José Limon's dance company. Siegel's reconsideration and description of Humphrey's dances, including many that are no longer performed, sheds important light on this pathbreaking dancer/choreographer.

Book Balanchine s Apprentice

Download or read book Balanchine s Apprentice written by John Clifford and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A talented young dancer and his brilliant teacher In this long-awaited memoir, dancer and choreographer John Clifford offers a highly personal look inside the day-to-day operations of the New York City Ballet and its creative mastermind, George Balanchine. Balanchine’s Apprentice is the story of Clifford—an exceptionally talented artist—and the guiding inspiration for his life’s work in dance. Growing up in Hollywood with parents in show business, Clifford acted in television productions such as The Danny Kaye Show, The Dinah Shore Show, and Death Valley Days. He recalls the beginning of his obsession with ballet: At age 11 he was cast as the Prince in a touring production of The Nutcracker. The director was none other than the legendary Balanchine, who would eventually invite Clifford to New York City and shape his career as both a mentor and artistic example. During his dazzling tenure with the New York City Ballet, Clifford danced the lead in 47 works, several created for him by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and others. He partnered famous ballerinas including Gelsey Kirkland and Allegra Kent. He choreographed eight ballets for the company, his first at age 20. He performed in Russia, Germany, France, and Canada. Afterward, he returned to the West Coast to found the Los Angeles Ballet, where he continued to innovate based on the Balanchine technique. In this book, Clifford provides firsthand insight into Balanchine’s relationships with his dancers, including Suzanne Farrell. Examining his own attachment to his charismatic teacher, Clifford explores questions of creative influence and integrity. His memoir is a portrait of a young dancer who learned and worked at lightning speed, who pursued the calls of art and genius on both coasts of America and around the world.