Ballet Books
Afton Historical Society Press Grace & Grit: A History of Ballet in Minnesota
Book Synopsis
£26.99
Boydell & Brewer Ltd America in the French Imaginary, 1789-1914:
Book SynopsisJust as America was observed in French literary and political commentary, we find representations of America in French music, dance, and theatre which serve as the focus of this volume. Following the American Revolution, French authors often viewed the United States as a laboratory for the forging of new practices of liberté and égalité, in affinity with France's own Revolutionary ideals but in competition with lingering anti-American depictions of an inferior, untamed New World. The volume examines French imagining of America through musical/theatrical portrayals of the American Revolution and Republic, soundscapes of the Statue of Liberty, homages to Washington, Franklin and Lafayette and negotiations of Francophone identity in New Orleans. The subject of race features prominently in paradoxical depictions of slavery, freedom, and revolution in the United States and French Caribbean colonies of 'Amérique' and in varied interpretations of American music and gendered identity. Essays consider French constructions of the Indigenous American and Black American 'exotic' that intersect with tropes of noble, pastoral savagery, menacing barbarism and the 'civilising' potency of French culture. Such French constructions reveal both a revulsion of racial alterity and an attraction to the expressive, even subversive, freedom of Americanness. Investigations of French conceptions of America extend to critiques of American orchestral music, Gottschalk's Louisianan-Caribbean Creole works, Buffalo Bill's spectacles and the cakewalk in Paris. With scholarly contributions on music, dance, theatre and opera, the volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of these disciplines.Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I. American liberté, sauvagerie and esclavage 1 Between Amérique and Colonial France: Revolutionary Tales of liberté and esclavage Diana R. Hallman 2 Justamant's Le Bossu and Depictions of Indigenous Americans in Nineteenth-Century French Ballet Marian Smith, Sarah Gutsche-Miller and Helena Kopchick Spencer 3 Louisiana Imagined: Gender, Race and Slavery in Le Planteur (1839) Helena Kopchick Spencer Part II. Myths of America and Intersecting Identities 4 'Brise du Sud': American Identity and War in the Popular Sheet Music of Francophone New Orleans Charlotte Bentley 5 'The Most Seductive Creole Indolence': Louis Moreau Gottschalk in the French Press Laura Moore Pruett 6 Symphonies from the New World: The Myths and Realities of American Orchestral Music in France Douglas Shadle Part III. Soundscapes and Sonic Fantasies 7 Historical Acoustemology in the French Romantic Travelogue: Chateaubriand's Sonic Imagining of the New World Ruth E. Rosenberg 8 La Liberté éclairant le monde: Transatlantic Soundscapes for the Statue of Liberty Annegret Fauser Part IV. America, Commodification and Race at the fin de siècle9 Buffalo Bill and the Sound of America at the 1889 World's Fair Mark A. Pottinger 10 Cakewalking in Paris: New Representations and Contexts of African American Culture César A. Leal Bibliography Index
£85.00
Liverpool University Press Theories of Ballet in the Age of the Encyclopédie
Book SynopsisIn Enlightenment Europe, a new form of pantomime ballet emerged, through the dual channels of theorization in print and experimentation onstage. Emphasizing eighteenth-century ballet’s construction through print culture, Theories of Ballet in the Age of the Encyclopédie follows two parallel paths—standalone treatises on ballet and dance and encyclopedias—to examine the shifting definition of ballet over the second half of the eighteenth century. Bringing together the Encyclopédie and its Supplément, the Encyclopédie méthodique, and the Encyclopédie d’Yverdon with the works of Jean-Georges Noverre, Louis de Cahusac, and Charles Compan, it traces how the recycling and recombining of discourses about dance, theatre, and movement arts directly affected the process of defining ballet. At the same time, it emphasizes the role of textual borrowing and compilation in disseminating knowledge during the Enlightenment, examining the differences between placing borrowed texts into encyclopedias of various types as well as into journal format, arguing that context has the potential to play a role equally important to content in shaping a reader’s understanding, and that the Encyclopédie méthodique presented ballet in a way that diverged radically from both the Encyclopédie and Noverre’s Lettres sur la danse.Trade Review\‘Olivia Sabee provides an important contribution to the study of the circulation of ideas and definitions concerning the art of ballet in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Her publication will be welcomed by specialists of the history of the performing arts, as well as scholars or students interested in the bigger picture of how the encyclopaedic spirit shaped the perception of the arts and served to disseminate new ideas during the Enlightenment period.\’ Béatrice Pfister, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies‘[A] valuable resource for scholars focused on dance, documentation, and communication… Sabee’s book reminds us that encyclopedias are works of art, and as such, they deserve our attention as scholars seek to discover how knowledge travels, or rather dances. Theories of Ballet in the Age of Encyclopédie is compelling because it directs us to consider ballet’s theoretical past as unsettled, and the ongoing circulation of texts as an important part of ballet’s history.’ Michelle LaVigne, Dance Chronicle
£87.18
West Virginia University Press Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness
Book SynopsisMemoir about ballet and illness from a creative writing teacher whose career as a ballerina was stopped by rheumatoid arthritis.RenÉe Nicholson’s professional training in ballet had both moments of magnificence and moments of torment, from fittings of elaborate platter tutus to strange language barriers and unrealistic expectations of the body. In Fierce and Delicate, she looks back on the often confused and driven self she had been shaped into—always away from home, with friends who were also rivals, influenced by teachers in ways sometimes productive and at other times bordering on sadistic—and finds beauty in the small roles she performed. When, inevitably, Nicholson moved on from dancing, severed from her first love by illness, she discovered that she retained the lyricism and narrative of ballet itself as she negotiated life with rheumatoid arthritis.An intentionally fractured memoir-in-essays, Fierce and Delicate navigates the traditional geographies of South Florida, northern Michigan, New York City, Milwaukee, West Virginia, and also geographies of the body—long, supple limbs; knee replacements; remembered bodies and actual. It is a book about the world of professional dance and also about living with chronic disease, about being shattered yet realizing the power to assemble oneself again, in a new way.Trade Review“Many dancers wrestle with one of the central questions of RenÉe Nicholson’s fabulous book: How does one live as an ex-dancer? The answers Nicholson explores will strongly resonate with those who long to lift the veil that shrouds creative pursuits in unnecessary mystique. I love Nicholson’s powerful prose: how the essays circle in and out of dance, the way movement comes alive on the page, and the articulate grace with which Nicholson writes about sudden disability. In Fierce and Delicate, Nicholson teaches us how to envelop our impossible dreams with gratitude for the life we have now.” RenÉe E. D’Aoust, author of Body of a Dancer “Lyrical and fascinating.”Buzzfeed NewsTable of ContentsPart I A Girl Who Wanted to Fly When I Was a Mouse Five Positions Never Famous Raked Stages: A Twelve-Step Program Coda: Partnering Out of the BluePart II A Woman Tethered to the Earth Hair: A Short History In Sickness A Royal in Appalachia Certified: Dancer Becomes a Teacher Claque Fierce and Delicate Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast Acknowledgments
£17.95
Dance Books Rhythmic Subjects Uses of energy in the dances
Book Synopsis
£46.75
Taylor & Francis Lighting Dance A Study of Technical Philosophical and Psychological Shadows
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£128.25
Taylor & Francis Kinesemiotics Modelling How Choreographed Movement Means in Space Routledge Studies in Multimodality
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£128.25
Taylor & Francis Ltd Floating Bones A Dancers Tensegretic Body as Teacher
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£51.29
Taylor & Francis Ltd Floating Bones
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£24.51
Taylor & Francis From Petipa to Balanchine Classical Revival and the Modernisation of Ballet
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£128.25
Taylor & Francis Dance Discourses Keywords in Dance Research
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£142.50
Taylor & Francis Never Far from Dancing Ballet Artists in New Roles
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£128.25
Taylor & Francis The Lure of Perfection Fashion and Ballet 17801830
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£128.25
Taylor & Francis Ltd Creative Ballet Teaching
Book SynopsisHow do teachers create a classroom environment that promotes collaborative and inquiry-based approaches to learning ballet? How do teachers impart the stylistic qualities of ballet while also supporting each dancer's artistic instincts and development of a personal style? How does ballet technique education develop the versatility and creativity needed in the contemporary dance environment?Creative Ballet Teaching draws on the fields of Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis (L/BMA), dance pedagogy, and somatic education to explore these questions. Sample lesson plans, class exercises, movement explorations, and journal writing activities specifically designed for teachers bring these ideas into the studio and classroom. A complementary online manual, Creative Ballet Learning, provides students with tools for technical and artistic development, self-assessment, and reflection.Offering a practical, exciting approach, Creative Ballet Teaching is a must-rTable of ContentsINTRODUCTIONPART I RETHINKING CREATIVITY, COMMUNITY, AND TECHNIQUE IN THE BALLET CLASSROOMChapter One Drawing inspiration from creative movement: teaching and planning from movement conceptsChapter Two Drawing inspiration from creative movement: developing body knowledge and improvisation skillsChapter Three Drawing inspiration from dance teachers: teaching students how to use your "tools"Chapter Four Drawing inspiration from dance students: learning from peers Chapter Five Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis: a tool for facilitating creativity, community, and technique PART II IMPROVING BALANCE AND MOTION Chapter Six Discovering the three-dimensional body: Shape Flow Support and Shape Qualities Chapter Seven Balancing three-dimensionally: Spatial Intent and Countertensions Chapter Eight Moving three-dimensionally: Traceforms and Kinesphere PART III DEEPENING DYNAMISMChapter Nine The dynamic palette: introduction to Effort Chapter Ten Fluidity: Free and Bound Flow Chapter Eleven Varying intensity: Strong and Light Weight Chapter Twelve Rhythmical nuance: Sudden and Sustained Time Chapter Thirteen Attentive movement: Direct and Indirect Space Chapter Fourteen Playing with the Effort palette
£36.99
Cambridge University Press Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£15.16
The University of Chicago Press Irina Baronova and the Ballets Russes de Monte
Book SynopsisTells the story of the rise of modern ballet and its popularity through the life story of one of ballet's most glamorous stars, Irina Baronova (1919-2008), prima ballerina for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and later for Ballet Theatre in New York.Trade Review"My friend Irina Baronova was a legendary Baby Ballerina of the Ballets Russes and an ambassador of classical ballet in America, but this book shows us the kind, funny, and hardworking woman behind the legend. She was a total pro and an elegant human being. If it's possible, I'm more in awe than ever." -Mikhail Baryshnikov "As a dancer myself, I connected deeply to Baronova's words about what it's like to feel in your soul the extremes of sacrifice, familial rivalry, and tremendous love that come from committing oneself to the art form. These pages made me realize how lucky we are now, we American dancers, because of the pioneering energy and sheer strength of Baronova and the other great dancers of the Ballets Russes who performed tirelessly night after night, stirring and thrilling hearts in every tiny pocket of America. It is something that should never be forgotten and should be instilled in all young dancers. We could never enjoy the careers we have today without these artists paving the way for us. I really couldn't put this book down. I was in tears." -Wendy Whelan, New York City Ballet "This is a beautiful record of the twentieth century lived through dance. It is illuminating and passionate and vivid: imagine Nabokov's Speak Memory photographed and choreographed. I loved it." -Edmund De Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes
£60.49
Hal Leonard Corporation Three City Blocks Score
Book Synopsis
£19.12
Princeton Book Company Both Sides of the Mirror The Science Art of
Book SynopsisA technical exploration of the art of ballet incorporating findings in the fields of kinesiology, biomechanics, and physiology
£24.95
Princeton Book Co. Steps in Ballet Basic Exercises at the Barre
Book SynopsisInstructive techniques for practicing ballet away from class are presented in this compilation of three previously published volumes. Elementary barre exercises, basic arm movements and positions of the body, and elevation and connecting steps are detailed with illustrations and helpful pointers that complement the guidance of a ballet instructor. Correct ballet terms are defined and listed in French with phonetic pronunciations. Parents, teachers, and students of ballet will find expert advice in this classic of ballet instruction.
£22.99
Princeton Book Company How to Teach Beginning Ballet
Book SynopsisTrade Review"What an awesomely comprehensive book! You really take nothing for granted in that you cover all aspects of teaching ballet." --Afua Hall, Dance teacher, Miami Conservatory
£29.44
WW Norton & Co Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian
Book SynopsisA critical triumph, Simon Morrison’s “sweeping and authoritative” (Guardian) work, Bolshoi Confidential, details the Bolshoi Ballet’s magnificent history from its earliest tumults to recent scandals. On January 17, 2013, a hooded assailant hurled acid into the face of the artistic director, making international headlines. A lead soloist, enraged by institutional power struggles, later confessed to masterminding the crime. Morrison gives the shocking violence context, describing the ballet as a crucible of art and politics beginning with the disreputable inception of the theater in 1776, through the era of imperial rule, the chaos of revolution, the oppressive Soviet years, and the Bolshoi’s recent $680 million renovation. With vibrant detail including “sex scandals, double-suicide pacts, bribery, arson, executions, prostitution rings, embezzlement, starving orphans, [and] dead cats in lieu of flowers” (New Republic), Morrison makes clear that the history of the Bolshoi Ballet mirrors that of Russia itself.Trade Review"The title means what it says. There’s plenty of scandal here: arson, double suicide, dead cats flung at curtain calls. At the same time, the book is energetically researched, beautifully written — fun, relaxed, sophisticated — and full of serious ideas, boldly stated." -- Joan Acocella, dance critic - The New Yorker"The insider look in Bolshoi Confidential is incredibly rich and makes this book a page-turner…Breathtakingly complicated life stories of both people and productions parade through the pages…Its central figures, like Plisetskaya, jump off its pages complex and alive." -- Daria Khitrova - New York Times"Morrison turns to the past in order to unpack the conundrum of the Bolshoi within the enigma-wrapped, mystery-obscured riddle of the Russian state…All of this makes for good, even great, fodder…Sex scandals, double-suicide pacts, bribery, arson, executions, prostitution rings, embezzlement, starving orphans, dead cats in lieu of flowers, and ballerinas refusing to shave their armpits." -- Madison Mainwaring - The New Republic"Masterful. . . . Bolshoi Confidential . . . is much more than a compendium of ballerinas behaving badly. Rather, it offers a rich, fascinating and nuanced examination of the role of the arts in Russian history, one that highlights their profound importance to the creation of a national identity and their troubled relationship with the country’s rulers." -- Douglas Smith - Wall Street Journal"Simon Morrison’s Bolshoi Confidential lifts the curtain on Russia’s best-known cultural institution. An intoxicating mix of grandeur and gossip, it charts luminous performances on stage and sordid machinations in the wings from the age of Catherine the Great to that of Vladimir Putin…Sweeping and authoritative." -- Lucy Ash - The Guardian"A sweeping, grandly intriguing story at the interface of art and power. . . . Morrison frames his story, always readable and brimming with curious anecdotes, with the recent, newsworthy acid attack on artistic director Sergei Filin, a strange episode that exposed not just clashes of individual personalities, but also competing views of what the Bolshoi should be, some of which may have emanated from inside the walls of the neighboring Kremlin. A must for ballet buffs . . . . [and] a look backstage that is both lively and learned." -- Kirkus (starred review)"Charming and astonishingly detailed…The Bolshoi’s dancers, ballets, and composers, its administrators and detractors and supporters—all are tantalizingly depicted here... Balletomanes will drool and sigh, music lovers will be fascinated…A riveting history." -- Booklist (starred review)"Another marvelously informative book from Simon Morrison, dishing this time on Russia’s great musical theater, onstage and off. It is a wonderful read, full of intriguing spectacle and spectacular intrigue." -- Richard Taruskin, author of The Oxford History of Western Music"Simon Morrison has written an engrossing history of one of Russia’s most enduring cultural institutions. Bolshoi Confidential deftly shatters the distinctions between high-brow and low-brow, art and politics, authority and violence." -- Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana and A World on Fire"A colorful and erudite view on Russia through the tumultuous history of the sumptuous Bolshoi." -- Peter Pomeranzev, author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible"Simon Morrison’s Bolshoi Confidential is a magisterial portrait of the art, intrigue, and politics buffeting Russia’s great cultural institution, the Bolshoi Ballet." -- Janice Ross, author of Like A Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet As Resistance in Soviet Russia"Morrison sweeps readers through the storied company’s 240-year history, describing key figures onstage and off, political ties to various regimes, and the births of many famous ballets." -- Dance Studio Life
£16.99
Seven Stories Press,U.S. A Matter of Appearance: A Memoir
Book Synopsis
£17.00
Brepols N.V. The Queen Danced Alone: Court Ballet in Sweden
Book Synopsis
£83.60
Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin Ballets Russes Et Ballets Suedois: La Musique a
Book Synopsis
£57.15
Zen-on Music Co. Ltd Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 1 Op. 64b
Book Synopsis
£29.25
