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Dance anecdotes : stories from the worlds of ballet, Broadway, the ballroom, and modern dance / Mindy Aloff

Author
Aloff, Mindy, 1947-
Published
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.
Physical Description
1 online resource (viii, 272 pages)
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Contents
Preface; Towering Figures; Of Steps and Their Authorship; Music Makes Me . . .; The Rehearsal Room; Coaches and Teachers; Hands and Things That Can Fill Them; Balletomania and Other Thrills; Inspiration; Seductions Attempted, Surmised, and Realized; Critical Lines; Turning Points; From Stage to Page; Fauna; Scandals; Touring; The Theaters; Costumes, Footgear, and Hair Do's and Don'ts; Makeup; Conductors; Dancing and Related Theatrical Professions; Dancing and the Movies; Injuries, Maladies, Misfortunes, and Cures; On Partnering and Partnerships; A Mark, a Yen, a Buck, or a Pound.
Summary
Mindy Aloff, a leading dance critic who has written for "The Nation", "The New Republic", and "The New Yorker", has brought together here a marvelous book of stories by and about dancers - entertaining and informative anecdotes that capture the boundless variety and richness of dance as an art, a tradition, a profession, a pastime, an obsession, a reality, and, for the dancer, an ideal. George Balanchine is here, and so are Fred Astaire, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Savion Glover, Martha Graham, and Lola Montez, and also stars from other arts - such as Akira Kurosawa and Bob Dylan - who have spoken about dancing with wit or illumination. There are stories about Irene and Vernon Castle, Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly, Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, Paul Taylor and Mark Morris. We read about the charisma and spontaneity of Anna Pavlova, about the secret to Vaslav Nijinsky's success ("I worked like an ox and I lived like a martyr"), about George Balanchine racing to a union dispute with a bag of dimes. Many of the stories are amusing, but some are rueful, even sad, and a few are dark.; Aloff concludes the volume with an essay about how dancing has been able to record its past, sometimes over centuries, and about how the art of the dancer, apparently as ephemeral in performance as cloud patterns, turns out, when conditions are hospitable, to be much more hardy and resilient than many people suppose. A glorious promenade of stories that stretch as far back as classical times and as far afield as Japan, India, and Java, this superb collection will be treasured by everyone who loves dance, whether young or old.
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Genre(s)
ISBN
9780195363784 (electronic bk.)
0195363787 (electronic bk.)
9780195054118 (alk. paper)
0195054113 (alk. paper)
1280523441
9781280523441
Digital File Characteristics
data file
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-249) and index.
View MARC record | catkey: 43160155