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Biographies
See also: Dance Biographies Backlist
Unfold: A Portrait of Peggy Baker
Carol Anderson
Peggy Baker is recognized internationally as one of the most outstanding dance artists of her generation. She has captivated audiences and influenced dancers across North America and around the world with her creativity in both modern dance and ballet.
Carol Anderson's intimate knowledge of the art form is revealed through her eloquent text alowing us to see inside the life of this extraordinary performer, creator and teacher. With over 100 photographs, this is a stunning tribute to a great dance artist.
Due June 2008. Publication price: $39.95. Order now for the special pre-publication price of $31.95 Offer valid till June 27 only.
Masters of Movement: Portraits of America's Great Choreographers
Rose Eichenbaum
A collection of photographic portraits and vignettes based on intimate conversations, Masters of Movement takes on a rare journey into the world of dance. Whether through her lens or through the revelations emanating from her masterful interviews, Rose Eichenbaum has succeeded in capturing the essential character of her subjects, who confide experiences and emotions that have driven their creativity and defined their styles. Masters of Movement will inform, empower, and inspire anyone on the creative path - and delight lovers of dance everywhere. Softcover, 264 pp. $32.95.
The Man Next Door Dances: The Art of Peter Bingham
Kaija Pepper
Vancouver-based Peter Bingham has been a driving force in Canada's contact improvisation scene for 30 years. Influenced by is early training with dancer/choreographer Linda Rubin, he later studied with American proponents of contact, Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith. Meticulously researched by author Kaija Pepper, Bingham's contact improvisation and choreographic works are brought to life once again on the printed page with detailed and thoughtful representation. Softcover, 196 pp. $39.95.
Nureyev The Life
Julie Kavanagh
Genius, charm, passion, beauty and sex appeal as well as an innate ability to excite an audience with his immense prowess as a classical dancer were all traits Rudolph Nureyev had in spades. Award-winning dance critic and arts writer Julie Kavanagh draws on previously unseen letters and diaries as well as interviews with Nureyev's inner circle to give us the most intimate, revealing and dramatic picture we have ever had of this legendary dance artist. Hardcover. $47.00. Coming in October.
Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance
Janice Ross
Anna Halprin pioneered what became known as "post-modern dance," creating work that was key to unlocking the door to experimentation in theater, music, Happenings and performance art. This comprehensive biography examines Halprin's fascinating life in the context of American culture. Janice Ross chronicles Halprin's long, remarkable career, beginning with the dancer's grandparents and ending with the present day, when Halprin continues to defy boundaries between artistic genres as well as between participants and observers. As she follows Halprin's development from youth into old age, Ross describes in engrossing detail the artist's roles as dancer, choreographer, performance theorist, community leader, cancer survivor, healer, wife and mother. Hardcover, 445 pp. $46.95.
Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins
Amanda Vaill
In the pages of this definitive biography, Amanda Vaill takes full measure
of the complicated, contradictory genius who was Jerome Robbins. Drawing
on thousands of pages from Robbins's personal and professional papers,
to which she was granted unfettered access, as well as on other archives
and hundreds of interviews, Somewhere is a riveting narrative of a
life lived onstage, offstage, and backstage. It is also an accomplished
work of criticism and social history that chronicles one man's phenomenal
career and places it squarely in the cultural ferment of a time when
New York City was truly "a
helluva town." Hardcover, 675 pp. $50.00.
Ecstasy and the Demon: The Dances of Mary Wigman
Susan Manning
In Ecstasy and the Demon, Susan Manning advances a sociological explanation
for the collaboration between German modern dancers and National
Socialism. She models methods for dance studies that contextualize
choreography in relation to changing sociopolitical conditions, bringing
dance scholarship into conversation with intellectual trends across
the humanities. The introduction to this second edition brings Manning's
groundbreaking work to bear on dance studies today and reconsiders
Wigman's career from the perspective of queer theory and globalization,
further illuminating the interplay of dance and politics in the twentieth
century. Softcover, 353 pp. $32.95.
The
Real Nureyev: An Intimate Memoir of Ballet's Greatest Hero
Carolyn Soutar
This is an intensely personal, under-the-skin depiction of ballet's greatest
hero. Carolyn Soutar worked with Nureyev at the London Coliseum during
the 1980s, and her biography focuses on a six-year period of his life
when the
career of this once phenomenal dancer, who began to call himself "Old
Galoshes" in recognition of his fading powers, was drawing to a close.
Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, yet always deeply human, The
Real Nureyev is a must-read for ballet fans. Hardcover, 192 pp. $31.95.
Howling
Near Heaven
Twyla Tharp and the Reinvention of Modern Dance
Marcia B. Siegel
Twyla Tharp has worked in the idoms of minimalism, pedestrianism, and Dada.
She has merged jazz, ballet, and modern dance. Her nearly 100 dance works
rank her as the most significant American choreographer of the twentieth
century. Howling Near Heaven is the first in-depth study of Twyla Tharp's
unique restless creativity, the story of a choreographer who refuses
to be pigeon-holed and the dancers who accompanied her as she sped across
the
frontiers of dance. Hardcover, 326 pp. $34.95.
David
Earle: A Choreographic Biography
by Michele Green
The inimitable artistry of David Earle, co-founder of Toronto Dance Theatre
is chronicled in this beautiful record of four decades of creativity. Each
of David's
130 choreographies is annotated with complete programme information, often
accompanied by summary notes, programme notes, choreographer's notes and interview
excerpts.
Beautifully illustrated with B&W photographs throughout, the book includes
an extensive essay from dance writer Graham Jackson and random musings
from Earle's personal journals. Large format. $52.95.
May
O'Donnell: Modern Dance Pioneer
Marian Horosko
Based on extensive interviews with O'Donnell herself, Marian Horosko
brings the story of this extraordinary yet unheralded sixty-year
career to light
for the first time. O'Donnell's personal memories -- from her early
training in California, to tours with Jose Limon, to the creation
of her signature
work, Suspension, to her collaborations with composer-husband Ray
Green -- and unpublished photographs from her personal archives provide
a first-hand
account of American modern dance coming into its own during the crucial
period of the 1920s through the 1980s. Horosko has also included
the first available intermediate-class syllabus of O'Donnell's technique.
Softcover, 136 pp. $29.95.
Maria
Tallchief: America's Prima Ballerina
Maria Tallchief
Maria Tallchief, born to Native American and Scoth-Irish parents, was the queen
of American ballet in its glory years. Studying under (and eventually marrying)
George Balanchine, Tallchief was a seminal figure in the ascent of the New York
City Ballet. In this warm autobiography, she reminisces about her eventful life
and dazzling career. Softcover, 351 pp. $28.95.
Dance
was her Religion
Janet Lynn Roseman
The power of dance is so pure and strong that it often stays with
the body long after physical movement has ceased. This "spiritual" movement
is one of the transcendental powers of dance. For Isadora Duncan,
Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham, dance was not simply their religion,
but it
was also their personal connection between the physical and spiritual
worlds. This fascinating book profiles these three remarkable women
and their equally
remarkable artistic output.
Softcover, 201 pp. $19.95.
All
In The Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine
Terry Teachout
Twenty years after his death, Balanchine, the ruthless, enigmatic founder
of New York City Ballet still dominates the world of dance. In clear,
elegant prose, Teachout tells both the dramatic story of one of the greatest
choreographers
of the twentieth century and why his ballets will be even more significant
in the century to come. Hardcover, 185 pp. $31.00.
Margot
Fonteyn: Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Royal Ballet
Christina Franchi
This beautiful book brings together for the first time over 120 images
which chart the whole of Fonteyn's career with The Royal Ballet from
1934 until her last appearances in galas in the 1980s. Softcover, 134 pp.
$50.00.
Margot
Fonteyn: A Life
Meredith Daneman
The legend of Margot Fonteyn has touched all those who have danced
before her. Anyone who saw her perform remembers her genius. Yet, until
now, the complete story of Margot's life has remained untold. Based
on more than 10 years of research, novelist and former dancer Meredith
Daneman, has crafted a vivid and insightful work which reveals the
true woman behind the myth. Softcover, 654 pp. $25.00.
Anna
Halprin
Libby Worth & Helen Poyner
This entry into the Routledge Performance Practitioners series offers an overview
of Halprin's life and the evolution of her work over the past 60 years, including
an investigation of her methodology, an analysis of her community performance
rituals, and an experiential approach to Halprin's work through movement explorations
and scores. Softcover, 187 pp. $29.95.
George
Balanchine: The Ballet Maker
Robert Gottlieb
Balachine's life story is a fascinating journey -- from his near-accidental enrollment,
at the age of nine, in St. Peterburg's Imperial School of Ballet, through the
deprivation of hunger of Bolshevik Russia, to Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, and
finally, 1933, to the United States and eventually to the New York City Ballet,
to which his reputation is forever tied. In this spellbinding biography, Robert
Gottlieb narrates Balachine's life story, showing that his personal life was
as highly charged as his professional
life. Hardcover, 216 pp. $11.99.
Jerome
Robbins: His Life, His Theatre, His Dance
Deborah Jowitt
The life, works, and creative processes of the complex genius Jerome Robbins
are elucidated in this stunning biography. Scrupulously researched and eloquently
told Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theatre, His Dance is illuminated by
photographs, enlivened by anecdotes, and grounded in insights into ballet and
musical comedies.
Hardcover, 619 pp. $58.00.
Winter
Season: A Dancer's Journal
Toni Bentley
An irresistible look at one of the world's great dance companies, Winter Season is
also Toni Bentley's sensitive, intimate, and painfully honest account of her
emotional and intellectual development in one of the most demanding of all the
arts. The result is perhaps the closest that most of us will ever come to knowing
what it feels like to be a dancer, both on and off the stage. Softcover, 150
pp. $31.95.
Grace
Under Pressure: Passing Dance Through Time
Barbara Newman
This wonderful collection of interviews addresses the almost
ineffable issues at the very heart of dance: style, standards, creativity,
artistry, and taste. Discussions with Mark Morris, Jean-Pierre Frohlich,
Jerome Robbins, Richard Thomas, and several others reveal what has
happened internationally over time and how dance has been passed
on from one generation to another. Softcover, 480 pp. $32.95.
Merce
Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance
Roger Copeland
Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance is the first complete critical
overview of Cunningham's entire body of work, extending from his earliest solos
through his most recent experiments with digital technology. This iconoclastic,
yet highly readable study will delight anyone interested in the development of
the American
arts in the 20th century. Softcover, 304 pp. $41.95.
Nureyev
Valeria Crippa & Ralph Fassey
As publicized and as chronicled as Nureyev's career and life
were, the photographs selected for this volume offer a more personal
glimpse of the dancer. Taken on and off stage, these images represent
the most successful years crowning a glorious career and show Nureyev
in his prime. Not only a visual record of one sublime dancer's career,
this book is an important contribution to ballet history. Hardcover,
155 pp. $70.00.
From Automatism to Modern Dance:
Francoise Sullivan with Franziska Boas in New York
Allana Lindgren
A Canadian cultural icon, Francoise Sullivan is often celebrated as one of the Automatists,
a group of artists in Montreal who used their art to incite aesthetic and social
change during the 1940's and 50's. In this book, Allana Lindgren vividly documents
the 2 years in New York when Sullivan studied under Franziska Boas: a period which
would prove to be vital to her artistic growth. Softcover 157 pp. $28.95.
Martha Graham:
The Evolution of Her Dance Theory and Training
Marian Horosko
This biographical account by Marian Horosko brings together new and previously
unpublished interviews with Martha Graham's "family" of dancers,
teachers, choreographers, and actors and interweaves them with provocative
biographical material about the life and influence of the creator
of classic modern dance. Softcover, 274 pp. $31.95.
José Limon
June Dunbar
A brilliant account of the life and career of one the 20th century's finest
performer/choreographers. Edited by a former pupil of Limon's, this
biography is formated as a series of chapters each written by a personal or
professional associate of the talented dancer. An intimate and revealing portrait.
Softcover, 166 pp. $33.95.
A Young Dancer's Apprenticeship:
On Tour with the Moscow City Ballet
Olympia Dowd
At the tender age of fourteen, Olympia Dowd was plucked from obscurity and offered
a job as a soloist with the Moscow City Ballet. Herein is the story of this once-in-a-lifetime
adventure seen through the eyes, emotions and words of an ordinary adolescent with
an extraordinary talent. Hardcover, 127 pp. $29.95.
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