Download or read book Broadway Balanchine and Beyond written by Bettijane Sills and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2019-02-25 with total page 182 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.
Download or read book Balanchine s Ballerinas written by Robert Tracy and published by New York : Linden Press/Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1983 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Balanchine and the Lost Muse written by Elizabeth Kendall and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Balanchine and the Lost Muse is a dual biography of the early lives of two key figures in Russian ballet, in the crucial time surrounding the Russian revolution: famed choreographer George Balanchine and his close childhood friend, ballerina Liidia Ivanova.
Download or read book Rebel on Pointe written by Lee Wilson and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short, plump, pigeon-toed, and never good enough for mom, Lee Wilson dared to dream she could grow up to be a star. In this uplifting memoir, Wilson describes how she grand jetéd from the stifling suburbia of the 1950s, a world of rigid gender roles, to the only domain where women and men were equally paid and equally respected—in grand, historic dance theaters and under the bright lights of the Broadway stage. At the age of sixteen, Wilson made her classical ballet debut in Monte Carlo. Eight months later, she thrilled to the sound of her first bravos—and she never looked back. After touring Europe and dancing with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in New York, she set her sights on Broadway, where she danced in many Broadway shows, including Hello Dolly! and the record-breaking performance of A Chorus Line. Rebel on Pointe immerses the reader in a remarkable and visionary world. It lifts the veil of myth surrounding legendary dance icons like George Balanchine to reveal the real men and women who have made American dance and dancers an international phenomenon. Wilson expertly depicts how her profession—at times considered so rigid and exacting—was a leading force in the liberation of women from the prison of post-war society. The hard-won gains and the maddening setbacks of the gender revolution are seen here through the eyes of a young dancer searching for freedom one “pas” at a time.
Download or read book Balanchine and Kirstein s American Enterprise written by James Steichen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1933 choreographer George Balanchine and impresario Lincoln Kirstein embarked on an elusive quest to found a ballet company and school in the United States. Though their efforts would eventually result in the creation of the New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet, the first decade of their collaborative efforts was anything but assured. Tracing the tangled histories of two of the most important figures in twentieth-century dance, Balanchine and Kirstein's American Enterprise offers a fresh perspective on a pivotal period in cultural history. Deeply researched using sources only made available in recent years, the book challenges the mythologies surrounding the early years of the Balanchine-Kirstein enterprise. It also reveals the full extent of Kirstein's essential role and offers reconstructive analysis of lost works, as well as new and surprising details regarding some of Balanchine's most iconic ballets, including Serenade, Apollo, and Concerto Barocco. This history involved artists including Richard Rodgers, Martha Graham, George Gershwin, Katherine Dunham, Vera Zorina, and Igor Stravinsky, as well as dozens of lesser known players whose contributions have yet to be fully acknowledged. Capturing the full sweep of Balanchine and Kirstein's collaborative work across multiple genres and institutions, this book reveals their partnership in all of its exciting and ungainly complexity, showing how the 1930s Balanchine was not the artist that he would eventually become, and how the same was true of the institutions that he and Kirstein jointly created.
Download or read book Dancing with Merce Cunningham written by Marianne Preger-Simon and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dancing with Merce Cunningham is a buoyant, captivating memoir of a talented dancer's lifelong friendship with one of the choreographic geniuses of our time. Marianne Preger-Simon's story opens amid the explosion of artistic creativity that followed World War II. While immersed in the vibrant arts scene of postwar Paris during a college year abroad, Preger-Simon was so struck by Merce Cunningham's unconventional dance style that she joined his classes in New York. She soon became an important member of his brand new dance troupe--and a constant friend. Through her experiences in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Preger-Simon offers a rare account of exactly how Cunningham taught and interacted with his students. She describes the puzzled reactions of audiences to the novel non-narrative choreography of the company's debut performances. She touches on Cunningham's quicksilver temperament--lamenting his early frustrations with obscurity and the discomfort she suspects he endured in concealing his homosexuality and partnership with composer John Cage--yet she celebrates above all his dependable charm, kindness, and engagement. She also portrays the comradery among the company's dancers, designers, and musicians, many of whom--including Cage, David Tudor, and Carolyn Brown--would become integral to the avant-garde arts movement, as she tells tales of their adventures touring in a VW Microbus across the United States. Finally, reflecting on her connection with Cunningham throughout the latter part of his career, Preger-Simon recalls warm moments that nurtured their enduring bond after she left the dance company and, later, New York. Interspersed with her letters to friends and family, journal entries, and correspondence from Cunningham himself, Preger-Simon's memoir is an intimate look at one of the most influential companies in modern American dance and the brilliance of its visionary leader.
Download or read book Bird s Eye View written by Dorothy Bird and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2012-01-12 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a foreword by Marcia B. Siegel In 1930 , seventeen-year-old Dorothy Bird from Victoria, British Columbia, was sent to study dance at the Cornish School in Seattle. There she was totally captivated by Martha Graham, who, at the end of summer, invited Dorothy to study with her at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Dorothy debuted with the Graham Group in 1931 in Primitive Mysteries, and was a company member and Graham’s demonstrator until 1937. Bird’s Eye View is a warm and human story that chronicles the early development of modern dance from a dancer’s perspective. Dorothy Bird was the only dancer of her time to work with all the major choreographers in concert and on Broadway: George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Doris Humphrey, Helen Tamiris, Anna Sokolow, Herbert Ross, Jose Limon, and Jerome Robbins, among others. She recounts fascinating theater experiences with such luminaries as Orson Welles, Gertrude Lawrence, Carol Channing, Danny Kaye, and Elia Kazan. Dorothy shares her methods and experiences as a teacher for Balanchine and her twenty-five-year tenure at the Neighborhood Playhouse to highlight her philosophy of “giving back” to the next generation of performers. Of all the artists Dorothy Bird worked with, Martha Graham figures most strongly in the book and in her life. Her narrative about Graham’s early creative process is a valuable addition to the literature, as is the story of her personal involvement with Graham. The reader gains an intimate insight into the love and fear instilled by Graham in her followers.
Download or read book Kurt Weill on Stage written by Foster Hirsch and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2004-02-01 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Limelight). His best-known song is "Mack the Knife," with words by Bertolt Brecht, from The Threepenny Opera , first performed in Weimar Berlin in 1928. Five years later, Kurt Weill fled the Nazis to come to America, where he soon emerged as one of the most admired composers of the Broadway musical stage. His shows included: Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, Street Scene and Lost in the Stars . His songs: "My Ship," "September Song," "Speak Low" and "It Never Was You." This biography concentrates on Weill's career in the United States, but its aim is to explore the truth in the comment made by Weill's wife, the unforgettable Lotte Lenya: "There is no American Weill, there is no German Weill. There is no difference between them. There is only Weill."
Download or read book Balanchine written by Eleni Hofmeister and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed portrait of George Balanchine presents new approaches to his choreography. The book examines Balanchine from diverse perspectives and discusses unexplored aspects of his work, such as the notion of Balanchine as an architect, and his experiments with the African-American dance tradition. The articles complement and reinforce each other, taking interdisciplinary perspectives and encouraging a reexamination of, and expansion of, existing opinions.
Download or read book Winter Season written by Toni Bentley and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2003-03-20 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An irresistible inside look at one of the world's great dance companies, Winter Season is also a sensitive, intimate, and almost painfully honest account of the emotional and intellectual development of a young woman dedicated to one of the most demanding of all the arts. Bentley's association with the New York City Ballet began when she was accepted by the affiliated School of American Ballet at the age of eleven. Seven years later, she became a member of the company. In the fall of 1980, as the winter season opened, she found herself facing an emotional crisis: her dancing was not going well. At 22 she felt that her life had lost direction. To try to make something of her experience, on paper if not on stage, she began to keep a journal, describing her day-to-day activities and looking back on her past. The result is perhaps the closest that most of us will ever come to knowing what it feels like to be a dancer, on stage and off. It also offers memorable glimpses of some notable members of the City ballet, with, at the center, the man whose vision they all served--George Balanchine.
Download or read book Swan Dive written by Georgina Pazcoguin and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Don't expect just tulle and toe shoes. In this fascinating insider's tale, NYCB dancer Pazcoguin reveals her world. . . . A striking debut." —People Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet—the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don’t see from the orchestra circle. In this love letter to the art of dance and the sport that has been her livelihood, NYCB’s first Asian American female soloist Georgina Pazcoguin lays bare her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training amid the unique demands of being a hybrid professional athlete/artist, all before finishing high school. She pitches us into the fascinating, whirling shoes of dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world with an unapologetic sense of humor about the cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality at NYCB. Some swan dives are literal: even in the ballet, there are plenty of face-plants, backstage fights, late-night parties, and raucous company bonding sessions. Rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement, NYCB sits at an inflection point, inching toward progress in a strictly traditional culture, and Pazcoguin doesn’t shy away from ballet’s dark side. She continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against the sexual harassment, mental abuse, and racism that in the past went unrecognized or was tacitly accepted as par for the course—all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand. Tying together Pazcoguin’s fight for equality in the ballet with her infectious and deeply moving passion for her craft, Swan Dive is a page-turning, one-of-a-kind account that guarantees you'll never view a ballerina or a ballet the same way again.
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.
Download or read book Apollo s Angels written by Jennifer Homans and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully told, Apollo’s Angels—the first cultural history of ballet ever written—is a groundbreaking work. From ballet’s origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France’s Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. In the twentieth century, émigré dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance. Jennifer Homans, a historian, critic, and former professional ballerina, wields a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. Her admiration and love for the ballet, as Entertainment Weekly notes, brings “a dancer’s grace and sure-footed agility to the page.”
Download or read book Big Deal written by Kevin Winkler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bob Fosse (1927-1987) is recognized as one of the most significant figures in post-World War II American musical theater. With his first Broadway musical, The Pajama Game in 1954, the "Fosse style" was already fully developed, with its trademark hunched shoulders, turned-in stance, and stuttering, staccato jazz movements. Fosse moved decisively into the role of director with Redhead in 1959 and was a key figure in the rise of the director-choreographer in the Broadway musical. He also became the only star director of musicals of his era--a group that included Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Michael Kidd, and Harold Prince--to equal his Broadway success in films. Following his unprecedented triple crown of show business awards in 1973 (an Oscar for Cabaret, Emmy for Liza with a Z, and Tony for Pippin), Fosse assumed complete control of virtually every element of his projects. But when at last he had achieved complete autonomy, his final efforts, the film Star 80 and the musical Big Deal, written and directed by Fosse, were rejected by audiences and critics. A fascinating look at the evolution of Fosse as choreographer and director, Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical considers Fosse's career in the context of changes in the Broadway musical theater over four decades. It traces his early dance years and the importance of mentors George Abbott and Jerome Robbins on his work. It examines how each of the important women in his adult life--all dancers--impacted his career and influenced his dance aesthetic. Finally, the book investigates how his evolution as both artist and individual mirrored the social and political climate of his era and allowed him to comfortably ride a wave of cultural changes.
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.
Download or read book Love Your Enemies written by Arthur C. Brooks and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right? Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against American, creating a “culture of contempt”—the habit of seeing people who disagree with us not as merely incorrect, but as worthless and defective. Maybe, like more than nine out of ten Americans, you dislike it. But hey, either you play along, or you’ll be left behind, right? Wrong. In Love Your Enemies, social scientist and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller From Strength to Strength Arthur C. Brooks shows that abuse and outrage are not the right formula for lasting success. Brooks blends cutting-edge behavioral research, ancient wisdom, and a decade of experience leading one of America’s top policy think tanks in a work that offers a better way to lead based on bridging divides and mending relationships. Brooks’ prescriptions are unconventional. To bring America together, we shouldn’t try to agree more. There is no need for mushy moderation, because disagreement is the secret to excellence. Civility and tolerance shouldn’t be our goals, because they are hopelessly low standards. And our feelings toward our foes are irrelevant; what matters is how we choose to act. Love Your Enemies offers a clear strategy for victory for a new generation of leaders. It is a rallying cry for people hoping for a new era of American progress. Most of all, it is a roadmap to arrive at the happiness that comes when we choose to love one another, despite our differences.
Download or read book Stravinsky and Balanchine written by Charles M. Joseph and published by . This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine, among the most influential artists of the twentieth century, together created the music and movement for many ballet masterpieces. This engrossing book is the first full-length study of one of the greatest artistic collaborations in history. Drawing on extensive new research, Charles M. Joseph discusses the Stravinsky-Balanchine ballets against a rich contextual backdrop. He explores the background and psychology of the two men, the dynamics of their interactions, their personal and professional similarities and differences, and the political and historical circumstances that conditioned their work. He describes the dancers, designers, and sponsors with whom they worked. He explains the two men's approach to the creative process and the genesis of each of the collaborative ballets, demolishing much received wisdom on the subject. And he analyzes selected sections of music and dance, providing examples of Stravinsky's working sketches and other helpful illustrative materials. Engagingly written, the book will be of great interest not only to music and dance historians but also to ballet lovers everywhere.
