Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism,

Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras

Robert Gottliebâ€™s immense sampling of the dance literatureâ€“by far the largest such project ever attemptedâ€“is both inclusive, to the extent that inclusivity is possible when dealing with so vast a field, and personal: the result of decades of reading.

It limits itself of material within the experience of todayâ€™s general readers, avoiding, for instance, academic historical writing and treatises on technique, its earliest subjects are those nineteenth-century works and choreographers that still resonate with dance lovers today: Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake; Bournonville and Petipa. And, as Gottlieb writes in his introduction, â€œThe twentieth century focuses to a large extent on the achievements and personalities that dominated itâ€“from Pavlova and Nijinsky and Diaghilev to Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, from Ashton and Balanchine and Robbins to Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp, from Fonteyn and Farrell and Gelsey Kirkland (â€œthe Judy Garland of Balletâ€) to Nureyev and Baryshnikov and Astaireâ€“as well as the critical and reportorial voices, past and present, that carry the most conviction.â€

In structuring his anthology, Gottlieb explains, he has â€œtried to help the reader along by arranging its two hundred-plus entries into a coherent groups.â€ Apart from the sections on major personalities and important critics, there are sections devoted to interviews (Tamara Toumanova, Antoinette Sibley, Mark Morris); profiles (Lincoln Kirstein, Bob Fosse, Olga Spessivtseva); teachers; accounts of the birth of important works from Petrouchka to Apollo to Push Comes to Shove; and the movies (from Arlene Croce and Alastair Macauley on Fred Astaire to director Michael Powell on the making of The Red Shoes). Here are the voices of Cecil Beaton and Irene Castle, Ninette de Valois and Bronislava Nijinska, Maya Plisetskaya and Allegra Kent, Serge Lifar and JosÃ© LimÃ³n, Alicia Markova and Natalia Makarova, Ruth St. Denis and Michel Fokine, Susan Sontag and Jean Renoir. Plus a group of obscure, even eccentric extras, including an account of Pavlova going shopping in London and recipes from Tanaquil LeClerqâ€™s cookbook.â€

With its huge range of content accompanied by the anthologistâ€™s incisive running commentary, Reading Dance will be a source of pleasure and instruction for anyone who loves dance.
Country USA
Brand Pantheon
Manufacturer Pantheon
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9780375421228
Color White
ReleaseDate 2008-11-04
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780375421228

Country	USA
Brand	Pantheon
Manufacturer	Pantheon
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9780375421228
Color	White
ReleaseDate	2008-11-04
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780375421228

Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras

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