Biographies

See also: Dance Biographies Backlist

The Pursuit of Perfection
Carol Bishop-Gwyn
A tremendously penetrating biography of Celia Franca, founder of the National Ballet of Canada. A beautifully illustrated volume which is an essential addition to the canon of Canadian dance literature. Written with depth, insight, and a journalist's insatiable curiosity, this book is perfect for anyone interested in dance, the arts, or Canadian institutions. Hardcover, 420 pp. $36.00.

Diaghilev and The Golden Age of the Ballets Russes
Jane Pritchard
This stunning book takes advantage of new research and draws on little-seen collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum to explore the life, work, influence, and cultural milieu of Serge Diaghilev, one of history's greatest and most influential innovators in any field of arts. Hardcover, 240 pp. $66.00.

Pina Bausch
Royd Climenhaga
This is the first English-language overview of Pina Bausch's work and methods. Included are, an historical and artistic context for her work, a newly published interview, a detailed account of her groundbreaking work Kontakthof, and practical exercises derived from her working method for artists and students of both dance and theatre. Softcover, 139 pp. $34.95.

The Everyday Dancer
Deborah Bull
A fresh and honest account of the business of dancing from a writer with first-hand experience of the profeesion. Through this vivid portrait of a dancer's every day Deborah Bull reveals the arc of a dancer's life, from the seven year old's very first ballet class, through training, to company life, and, eventually to retirement. A unique persepective, and an essential read for the aspiring dancer. Hardcover, 220 pp. $32.00.

Peter in Process: Peter Boneham's Sixty Years of Dance
Sara Porter
A brilliant teacher; a revered mentor; an obsessive worker: Peter Boneham is Canada's longest serving artistic director in dance. Running dance companies in Montreal and Ottawa, he has choreographed over 50 works. This new biography chronicles his incredible 60-years in dance. Softcover, 231 pp. $39.95.

Diaghilev: A Life
Sjeng Scheijen
A major new biography of Serge Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes, who revolutionised ballet, bringing together composers such as Stravinsky and Prokoviev, dancers and choreographers such as Ninjinsky and Karsavina, Fokine and Balanchine and artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Bakst and Goncharova. This magnificent book brings a complex and powerful personality with boundless creative energy fully to life. Hardcover, 552 pp. $55.00.

Balanchine Then and Now
Edited by Ann Hogan
In this book, leading dancers, choreographers, company directors, critics and academics assess Balanchine's and his relevance to dance today. Richly illustrated, this multi-dimensional dialogue is accessible to anyone wishing to learn more about Balanchine and his continuing impact on dance.

Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth MacMillan
Jann Parry
By the end of his lifetime, Kenneth MacMillan was internationally accepted as one of the great choreographers of the 20th century. However despite the success that he achieved, his greatest ballets reveal glimpses of a deeply troubled mind, an outsider at odds both with the institutions in which he worked and with their expectations of what ballet should be. This first complete biography of Kenneth MacMillan reveals a complex artist who fiercely guarded his own privacy, while his ballets communicated his darkest and most intimate thoughts. Hardcover, $59.95.

Dynamic Women Dancers
Anne Dublin
This is a collection of 10 engaging capsule biographies from the history of dance. The women profiled here have become masters of their art, dancing and choreographing their way around the world. All of them have helped transform their style of dance, paving the way for the next generation. Softcover, 128 pp. $10.95.

Diaghilev and Friends
Joy Melville
As the dominant father figure of the Ballets Russes from their inception in 1909, Diaghilev was admired, feared, loved, and hated in equal measure. Joy Melville's major new biography, published on the centenary of the foundation of the Ballet Russes, explores her subject's tempestuous and destructive affair with his protege Nijinsky, and his friendship with Jean Cocteau, searching all the while for Diaghilev the man, what motivated him, amused him, angered him and inspired him. Hardcover, 290 pp. $33.00.

Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham
Carolyn Brown
Carolyn Brown's compelling and unsentimental memoir of her time working with the dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham and John Cage offers a dazzling glimpse into the evolution of dance and performance in the 20th century. Softcover, 645 pp. $33.50.

Electric Salome: Loie Fuller's Performance of Modernism
Rhonda K. Garelick
The legendary Loie Fuller rose from a small-time vaudeville career to become the most famouse American in Europe at the turn of the century. In Electric Salome, Rhonda Garelick demonstrates that Fuller was not merely an entertainer, but an artist of great psychological, emotional, and sexual expressiveness. Here Fuller finally receives her due as a major artist in her own right. Softcover, 246 pp. $31.95.

Rudolf Laban
Karen Laban
Rudolf Laban was one of the leading dance theorists of the twentieth century. His work on dance analysis and notation raised the status of dance as both an art form and a scholarly discipline. This introductory guide combines a biographical overview with an exploration of his key ideas and contributions to the world of dance. Furthermore, readers with find herein a detailed exercise-based breakdown of Laban's key teachings. Softcover, 136 pp. $36.95.

Irina: Ballet, Life, and Love
Irina Baronova
George Balanchine discovered her. Yul Brynner romanced her. Genius artists designed the sets and costumes for her. And as one of the "Three Baby Ballerinas" who toured packed houses around the globe during the 1930s, Irina Baronova danced for dignitaries such as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. In this stunningly illustrated autobiography, Irina Baronova remembers her purposeful journey and remarkable life in the arts. Hardcover, 534 pp. $44.00.

Remembering Nureyev: The Trail of a Comet
Rudi van Dantzig
Written at the request of the great dancer, this searing memoir by Nureyev's friend and colleague is an uncompromising look at artists in relationship. This biography is a sustained first-hand account of the dancer as both a working artist and human being. Nureyev and van Dantzig's stories intertwine and seperate through their decades of friendship to create a vivid picture of the dance world itself and the courage, drive, and tenacity required of any performing artist. Hardcover, 251 pp. $43.50.

Dancing Lives: Five Female Dancers from the Ballet d'Action to Merce Cunningham
Karen Eliot
In her new book Karen Eliot studies dance history through the bodies, lives, and historical contexts of dancers. Here, the lives and careers of five popular female dancers: Giovanna Baccelli, Adele Dumilatre, Tamara Karsavina, Moira Shearer, and Catherine Kerr are examined thorougly. These women represent a cross section of performance, training, and technique in Western theatrical dance since the eighteenth century which Eliot draws on to teach us about the history of western dance culture. Hardcover, 190 pp. $41.95.

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. $39.95.

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. $29.95.

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. Softcover, 782 pp. $22.95.

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. Softcover, 444 pp. $28.95.

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." Softcover, 675 pp. $25.95.

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. $29.95.

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.

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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.

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. Softcover, 619 pp. $27.95.

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. $25.50.

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.

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. $37.00.

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.

Done Into Dance: Isadora Duncan In America
Ann Daly
An exploration of Isadora Duncan's place in the socio-cultural context of her time, with relation to her association with feminism and her racial notion of "Americanness". Softcover, 267 pp. $33.95.

 

An Instinct for Success:
Arnold Spohr & the Royal Winnipeg Ballet
Michael Crabb
The author is one of the keenest observers/chroniclers of dance in this country who has applied his acumen with a passion for the subject of this book. Mr. Spohr molded the RWB into one of the world's best and most unique dance companies, some would say against all odds. This well-illustrated book is a fitting tribute to the company and the man who led them to world acclaim. $34.95.

Grant Strate: A Memoir
Grant Strate
Dancer, choreographer, and a pioneer in Dance Education, Grant Strate recounts a lifetime devoted to dance and dancers in Canada in this highly engaging memoir. Signed copies available Softcover, $24.95.

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Last modified March 3, 2012.
Please note that all prices are in Canadian dollars. All prices are subject to change without notice.