Before Maya Angelou Was a Poet, She Was a Dancer By Lauren Wingenroth

Photo Credit: anastasiaruth.wordpress.com

This week marks three years since brilliant and beloved poet Maya Angelou passed at the age of 86. And of course, we're taking the time to remember timeless works like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. But we also discovered something that makes us love Angelou even more—and gives us a new perspective on her writing. Before she became renowned for her poetry and memoirs, Angelou was a bonafide professional dancer, touring Europe in a production of Porgy & Bess, studying with Martha Graham and performing with Alvin Ailey (she was even one of Ailey's first partners!). She was also a professional singer and recorded an album called "Calypso Lady," according to NPR. "I was known as Miss Calypso, and when I'd forget the lyric, I would tell the audience, 'I seem to have forgotten the lyric. Now I will dance.' And I would move around a bit," she said in a 2008 interview. Of course, later in her career Angelou acted in various movies and television shows, including the mini-series Roots. Dance Magazine

Sergei Polunin Lands Major Movie Roles By Jennifer Stahl

Photo Credit: Natalia Osipova and Sergei Polunin
www.criticaldance.org

It’s hard not to resent Sergei Polunin a little bit. After walking away from his principal position at The Royal Ballet at age 23, frustrated—as he later told Dance Magazine—by the lack of support, money and exposure he was getting as a ballet dancer, now it looks like he’s having his cake and eating it, too. Not only is Polunin dancing again—under Igor Zelensky in Munich’s Bayeriches Staatsballett, and with girlfriend Natalia Osipova in her program of contemporary works—but he’s also getting the Hollywood attention (and paycheck) he’s always wanted. In addition to starring in his own bio-doc, Dancer, Polunin recently confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that he’ll be appearing in two major upcoming movies: the spy thriller Red Sparrow, featuring Jennifer Lawrence (who plays a ballerina-turned-Russian spy who falls for a CIA officer) and the whodunit classic Murder on the Orient Express starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz and Judi Dench. For now, Polunin’s roles in both movies are unknown. But we’re keeping our fingers crossed they include some dancing. Don’t let yourself get too bitter. Sure, he’s landed numerous priceless opportunities in spite (or maybe because) of his “bad boy” reputation. But watching Dancer, you realize he’s struggled the same as every aspiring dancer. What’s more, he’s determined to give back: He says his new Project Polunin is designed to be a company to support other dancers by setting them up with resources like scholarship funds, lawyers looking out for their interests and agents who can connect them with other industries—like film. Dance Magazine Photo

Your All-Day Backstage Pass to Lincoln Center By Jennifer Stahl

Photo Credit: bedazzlememore.com

Are you already feeling post-World Ballet Day blues? Never fear! Your next all-day online binge watch is just two days away. This Friday, Lincoln Center will host a livestream on its Facebook page from 8:30 am EST to “curtain down” Friday night. All 11 of the performing arts organizations that make up Lincoln Center will participate. Livestreams are becoming an increasingly popular way for dance companies and other arts institutions to connect with their online fans now that Facebook and YouTube make it so easy. And we have to admit that this is a trend we are fully on board with. Not only do they give us a peek at dancers who we rarely—if ever—get to see in person, but livestreams offer an up-close look at the sweat and mistakes that are part of every dancer’s work. The on-the-spot nature of these social media events mean they’re not perfect—and therefore all that more illuminating. So what’s on Lincoln Center’s lineup? -Follow a day in the life of New York City Ballet principal Megan Fairchild, who will be performing Balanchine’s Serenade that night -Go behind the scenes during rehearsals of the revival of the musical Falsettos, choreographed by Spencer Liff -Peek in on an advanced class at the School of American Ballet -Hear from curators at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts -Get an insider’s view of Juilliard -And much more! Dance Magazine Photo

Ballerina Natalia Osipova and the legacy of Amy Winehouse By Mary Brennan

Photo Credit: Nikolai Gulakov

FOR THOUSANDS of ballet fans worldwide, the name Natalia Osipova is linked, indelibly, in their hearts and minds with one talismanic, classic role: Giselle. Choreographer Arthur Pita had another haunted persona in mind, however, when Osipova tasked him with creating a new work for the triple bill of contemporary pieces she’ll be performing as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s dance programme. His inspiration? “Amy Winehouse – and then, because of her album Back to Black, the 60’s girl group The Shangri-Las.” Pita cites those charismatic singers as the starting point for Run Mary Run, his one-act duet for Osipova and her partner (off-stage as well as on) Sergei Polunin. If this sounds like left-field thinking with a retro hair style, Pita provides persuasive reasons for putting one of the ballet world’s most luminous stars in a garishly red beehive wig and the other, Polunin, in the archetypal “rebel boy” uniform of white t-shirt, blue jeans, black leather jacket. “Natalia wanted a piece with narrative and character,” he explains. “And that is quite a challenge when you only have two people on-stage – there are no other characters for them to react to. So you have to find a structure that is really all about their relationship. And make it interesting for audiences to watch, as well as for them to dance. I decided that maybe we should go backwards – start with the end of their lives, with death, and then travel back, bit by bit, to the moment when they met as teenagers, and it was absolutely love at first sight.” Mutual attraction doesn’t necessarily produce happy endings. Pita had seen a documentary about Amy Winehouse, and had been struck by aspects of her relationship with (her then husband) Blake Fielder-Civil. “I’d always loved her as a singer, I had all her music, I loved her persona,” he says, “but I’d come to feel there was something disturbing about her intensity towards him and about how she’d come off-stage, see him in the wings and just immediately latch onto his arm, as if glued there. And how he would guide her away, take charge almost. I thought that could translate into a choreography tinged with ownership and obsession. Then, thinking about how the Shangri-Las had inspired Amy’s album Back to Black – and listening to their music, and to the lyrics especially – I realised just how dramatic their songs were. People used to refer to them as ‘splatter platters’ because they were full of death and teenage heart-break. It all seemed very Amy...” Would it turn out to be very Natalia? By the time Osipova and Polunin walked into the rehearsal studio, Pita had a scenario in mind – and a sheaf of translations in his hand so that Osipova could understand exactly what the Shangri-Las were describing in the lyrics of Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand) or Dressed in Black or Past, Present and Future, songs he wanted woven into the soundtrack for his choreography. There’s a smile in his voice as recalls how Osipova “completely bought into the rhythms of the music, the dramas in it – and I think, too, that she really connected with the sad voice of Mary Weiss. It was as if she could already feel the character I was looking for. She knows these stories of love, loss, death, the after-life from the great classic roles she has made her own – Giselle, most especially. So give her a story like that, with all the little packages of emotion in it – she will just open them up and devour them, connect with them, then act them so beautifully and with such honesty.” Off-stage there is no pretence whatsoever: Osipova and Polunin are a real-life couple, their romance and relationship a source of fascination and curiosity for press and ballet fans alike. So who played Cupid? You could say Giselle did. In March 2015, Osipova was preparing to dance the role in Milan when, for various reasons, she found herself without an Albrecht. It was her mother, miles away in Moscow, who suggested that Polunin might be a suitable partner – yes, there was his “bad boy” reputation, but his talent as a dancer was never in question. An e-mail exchange later, the pair were behind closed doors, rehearsing the most romantic ballet in the classical repertoire and falling in love themselves – though not going public about their private partnership until later that year. They are now dancing together in two of the three pieces in the EIF hot ticket, Natalia Osipova and Guests – the other guests include the choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Russell Maliphant. Osipova, determined to explore new dance directions, had requested their works to be off-pointe and contemporary in technique and movement vocabulary. For Cherkaoui, this translated into a trio, Qutb (Arabic for axis or pivot) where Osipova is flanked by two male dancers in what often looks like a ritual exploration of stamina, strength and inter-dependent physicality. Sufi chants rise like incense, Osipova’s curving back-bends are breath-taking while the men – James O’Hara and Jason Kittlberger – bring a supportive muscularity to Cherkaoui’s sculptural shapes. Maliphant – unlike Cherkaoui and Pita – had never worked with Osipova before, but in Silent Echo he surely acknowledges the balletic training that informs her body as he sets up crossover points between classical and contemporary lines. Nor can he ignore Polunin’s fabulous, soaring jump. So even as Scanner’s multi-layered, technology-infused soundscape is insisting on modernity, there is still a sense of traditional pas-de-deux structure in the interactions that emerge within the moods and spaces defined by Michael Hulls’s lighting design. Run Mary Run is the end piece that catapults dance-drama into another dimension and yet, as Pita fully intended, the dark twists and quirky absurdities in his girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy story-line allow Osipova and Polunin to break out – be characters who walk, jive, smooch and rock on an 1960’s wild side, regardless of the risks and consequences. “Natalia has done so many Giselles, Swan Lakes, Don Q’s – all the big classic roles – over and over, and now she wants to push towards something new,” says Pita. “When we were talking about her doing contemporary dance, she said she wants to do it while her body can explore it quite freely.” Osipova at 30 is surely in her artistic prime, both technically and in expressive interpretation. Isn’t it too early for her to come off pointe, get grounded in contemporary? “It’s about adding knowledge and experience,” says Pita who has done something similar by working across genres, creating work for children, choreographing abstract contemporary pieces and classical ballet narratives for companies on both sides of the Atlantic. “Natalia wanted new challenges. Run Mary Run asked her to explore a completely different character from the one in Facada, an earlier piece we did together, where she was a vengeful bride who kills her faithless fiancé and dances on his grave. This narrative is about a love that exists even in the grave, but I don’t want to give too much away!” He clearly enjoys working with Osipova, and now Polunin, but admits there are challenges for him too. “You can never forget that these ballet dancers are already stars – and that audiences have come to see them and the moment when Sergei jumps, when Natalia jumps. And to see them expressing romance and tenderness, because the audience knows they are a real-life couple. I don’t think you can ignore that, but at the same time you have to bring your own ideas, your own voice to the choreography.” Not just his voice, but that of the Shangri-Las and the teenage angst they captured on 60’s vinyl. Natalia Osipova and Guests is at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from today to Sunday. [August 12-14] www.eif.co.uk Herald Scotland Edinburgh International Festival

Young Lions looking for space for reflection and debate

Ljubljana, [Slovenia] 10 August - The 19th Young Lions international festival of performing arts, to be launched on 19 August, will be somewhat different from the previous editions as it provides more space for reflection, debate and research, the organisers announced on Wednesday. Each year, the Young Lions (Mladi levi) international festival brings together performing groups and solo artists whose work is characterised by original approaches to theatre and dance. The festival is part of the Junge Hunde international network, whose mission is to bring together young artists from across Europe, present their work to international audiences, and review innovative practices in European theatre. STA

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19th consecutive edition of the Mladi levi international festival of contemporary arts is bringing to Ljubljana leading-edge stage artists from all over the world. An allegorical performance by the French director Philippe Quesne, Night of the Moles, will open the festival, where gigantic magical creatures lead spectators into the cavity of the world in the search for shelter. The festival this year also proudly presents Penny Arcade, the legend of the New York underground scene, and last year’s festival highlight, the Brazilian artist Christiane Jatahy, contemporary Belgian avant-garde Benjamin Verdonck, joining forces with a young Portuguese artist Maria Lucia Cruz Correia to orchestrate poetic surprises across the city and many more. The festival programme is available at its website. Visit Ljubljana

How Raven McRae, a Broadway Dancer, Spends Her Sundays

Photo Credit: Alex Wroblewski/The New York Times

Raven McRae, a 22-year-old dancer who was trained as an actress at LaGuardia High School, is the only native New Yorker in the cast of “Paramour,” a Cirque du Soleil musical currently on Broadway. Ms. McRae, who spent much of her childhood on Staten Island, lives there with her mother in an apartment in St. George. On Sundays, she commutes by ferry to Manhattan for two performances. Ms. McRae made her Broadway debut as a dancer two years ago in “Motown: The Musical.”  
SHOWER WITH SPOTIFY I wake up at 8 and immediately check my iPhone, which is also my alarm clock, to see if stage management left any message regarding schedule changes. I need to catch a 9 o’clock boat into Manhattan, so I run into the shower and use Spotify on my phone to listen to Kendrick Lamar, who I love. I time my shower to the length of two Kendrick songs. I don’t consider him a rapper; I consider him a poet and an artist. He sings so passionately and doesn’t hold anything back, and that puts me in a good mood and inspires me to give 100 percent of myself on stage. Then I’m running out the door without eating breakfast because for me, chewing is just too much work that early in the morning.

ROLE-PLAY During my walk to the boat, I put on my headphones and sing along to Cynthia Erivo from the soundtrack of “The Color Purple.” I literally pretend I’m Cynthia. I have a nice voice but I never considered myself a singer until I got into “Motown.” Now I’d like to be a principal performer one day, like Cynthia. She’s very inspirational.

GIVE HER FREEDOM, NOT LIBERTY I get on the boat around 9:30 and sit on the side that does not face the Statue of Liberty because that’s where all of the tourists are and it’s just too noisy. I’m going to the city to do two shows so I want to be alone and relaxed, not crazed. I take advantage of the free time by checking Instagram or Facebook, or just staring at the water.

HIT THE BARRE When I get off the boat I jump on the 4 train up to Union Square, where I take an open ballet class for about an hour to get my body loose before I head to the theater. When I get there I usually have a granola bar and some coconut water before I warm up. It’s a great atmosphere; everyone is just focused on getting their bodies in the right alignment. When I have a good class, I have a good day on stage.

PRE-SHOW PASTA I usually get to the theater by noon, an hour earlier than call-time, and I order shrimp and spaghetti from an Italian restaurant and take little bites while I’m putting on my makeup, and the entire dressing room starts smelling like pasta. I spend about a half-hour doing my makeup and another half-hour doing my hair, and then I stretch a bit more. It gets hectic at that point because the dressers start putting our clothes out. About 1:40, I start getting excited because I can begin to hear the crowd coming in. Right before the matinee starts, I like to go on stage and watch the acrobats rehearse and check my marks and maybe run through the beginning of a few dance numbers with some of my cast mates.

INTERMISSION After the matinee, a bunch of us like to walk over to Bryant Park to unwind, even though we’re still in makeup and wearing hats to cover our wig preps. Some days I’ll get ice cream, or I’ll just take my spaghetti and shrimp with me and eat it there. Sometimes we get recognized, and people want to take pictures with us.

KEEP IT LOOSE We get back to the theater by about 5:30, and I take a short nap in the greenroom on a little bed I made using a big lawn cushion from Kmart, a small pillow and a kid’s blanket. By our next call-time, I like to drink a milkshake while I work on my makeup. Then I’ll get loose again by doing some chin-ups or using the elliptical or exercising with some other gadget. They call “Places” at 7:30.

HOME AGAIN After our second show, I catch the 10:30 boat and get home by 11. I like to get into bed and binge-watch “Orange Is the New Black,” which helps settle my nerves before I fall asleep sometime in the middle of the night. International New York Times

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Joseph Brodsky, in a Song of Exiled Russians By Marina Harss

It may seem odd that the poet Joseph Brodsky, a man who had little time for ballet — “the art of better days,” he called it in a 1975 poem — should have counted among his closest friends the Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. (The poem, in fact, was dedicated to him.) Brodsky was eight years older than Mr. Baryshnikov, and in his friend’s dancing he saw something more than ballet, something, as he told the Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov, closer to metaphysics. Mr. Baryshnikov remembers first reading Brodsky’s poetry at 16, just arrived in Leningrad from Riga, Latvia, to study ballet. “The magnetism was there,” Mr. Baryshnikov said recently in a room at the Baryshnikov Arts Center lined with prints of St. Petersburg; his poetry “respected man’s brain and heart and dignity.” This was a year after Brodsky’s trial, in 1964, for “social parasitism,” a Kafkaesque exercise. The trial transcript had circulated secretly, and Brodsky’s sang-froid on the stand turned him into a symbol of resistance and artistic freedom. (He was imprisoned, and spent a year and a half in internal exile.) The two were introduced at a party in New York, soon after Brodsky’s forced departure from the Soviet Union (in 1972) and Baryshnikov’s 1974 defection; they immediately became close. During their 22-year friendship — Brodsky died at 55 in 1996 — they spoke often, opened a restaurant, drank and took walks along the Hudson. Last year, Mr. Baryshnikov, who has made increasingly frequent forays into theater, teamed with the Latvian director Alvis Hermanis, director of New Riga Theater, for “Brodsky/Baryshnikov,” a one-man show, which opened in Riga in October and comes to the Baryshnikov Arts Center, starting Wednesday, March 9. It’s not really a play, or a poetry recital, but something in between. Mr. Hermanis has layered together poems from throughout Brodsky’s career. On Skype from Milan, he explained his concept: “I said to Misha, you have to imagine you are not alone onstage. There are two people, and there’s something going on between them, some secret.” Mr. Baryshnikov recently talked about Brodsky and the show. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation. At several points, you perform dreamlike dances accompanied by the recorded sound of your voice, or Brodsky’s voice. I don’t really dance in the show, but I move quite a bit. Hermanis and I decided there shouldn’t be any choreography per se but reaction, emotion, like a body language or electricity running through the body. There are references to Butoh and to flamenco. In a poem about flowers, I suggested using an element of onnagata [female impersonation] from Kabuki. Because, what can be closer to a beautiful flower than that? You talked to him every day? Almost every day, even when I was traveling. We talked about mundane things. He liked to walk. From Morton Street where he lived up the Hudson or East River, the Brooklyn Bridge, the East Village. He was fascinated by the light and proximity to the water. What do you miss the most about him? Some kind of internal security of friendship. The first years after he went, I felt, even though I have some very close friends, many of whom he introduced me to, very lonely, practically alone, though I had children and my wife and my family. With him, I always felt security if I wanted to talk about something private. International New York Times Amazon BAC

25 to Watch

Caitlin Cucchiara. Photo Courtesy of Todd Rosenberg

Meet the breakout stars of 2016. 

Jovani Furlan

Soloist, Miami City Ballet

Cora Cliburn

Dancer, Post:Ballet

Kaleena Miller

Tap Entrepreneur 

Francesco Gabriele Frola

First Soloist, National Ballet of Canada

Miriam Miller

Apprentice, New York City Ballet

Renata Shakirova

Corps Member, Mariinsky Ballet

Sterling Baca

Corps Member, American Ballet Theatre

Katarzyna Skarpetowska

Contemporary Choreographer

 

Alex Sanchez

Musical Theater Choreographer

Jim Nowakowski

Dancer, “So You Think You Can Dance” Season 12 tour

Shahar Dori

Corps Member, Houston Ballet

Myles Thatcher

Ballet Choreographer

Jenelle Figgins

Dancer, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet

Caitlin Cucchiara

Dancer, Visceral Dance Chicago

Jacquelin Harris

Dancer, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Litebulb

Footwork dancer

Caitlin Trainor

Modern Choreographer

Norbert De La Cruz III

Contemporary Choreographer

Tamisha Guy

Dancer, Abraham.In.Motion

Léonore Baulac

Première danseuse, Paris Opéra Ballet

Kiara Felder

Dancer, Atlanta Ballet

MADBOOTS DANCE

Modern Dance Troupe

Hiroki Ichinose

Dancer, Nuremberg Ballet

Michelle Veintimilla

Broadway Actress

Nayara Lopes

Dancer, Dance Theatre of Harlem

Dance Magazine

Baryshnikov Arts Center Receives $3 Million Gift from Nureyev Foundation By Jennifer Schuessler

The Baryshnikov Arts Center, which turns 10 years old this year, has received a $3 million birthday check from the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation. The gift is the first toward a permanent endowment for the center, which provides artistic residencies and presents some 20 shows a year at its two-theater facility in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan. One of the studios there will be named for Mr. Nureyev, who died in 1993 and trained at the same ballet academy in St. Petersburg as Mr. Baryshnikov. “This gift attaches his name to something I think he championed — artists experimenting, challenging themselves to do better, taking risks,” Mr. Baryshnikov told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the gift. The Baryshnikov Arts Center opened in 2005 with the mission of creating a gathering place for artists of all disciplines. The fall season includes shows by the puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, the Aakash Odedra dance company and the experimental theater director Daniel Fish. The gift is the largest yet made by the Nureyev foundation, which is based in Chicago and has disbursed some $12 million over the past 20 years, according to Barry L. Weinstein, its board chairman. “The gift is intended as a meaningful tribute to one of the world’s greatest dancers, Rudolf Nureyev,” Mr. Weinstein said in an interview. While the gift is intended specifically to support dance at the center, he added, both Mr. Nureyev and Mr. Baryshnikov were “connected by being nourished by an appreciation of all the arts.” International New York Times Photo Wikipedia

Hubbard Street Dance gets $500,000 grant By Doug George

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will receive $500,000 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, it was announced Monday. The grant money will go toward the Chicago dance company's long-term goals and operations. Hubbard Street was one of 18 organizations to receive grants through a new initiative, the Leadership Grants Program for Dance (and was one of only nine to be awarded a half-million dollars). According to the foundation, "grantees distinguished themselves by the quality of their choreography, the impact of their touring on communities across the country, and the successful expansion of their own initiatives and educational programming." The money must go toward operations, versus building projects or other "brick-and-mortar" plans. The other recipients are Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Alonzo King LINES Ballet; AXIS Dance Company; Ballet Hispanico; the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Danspace Project, Inc.; Jacob’s Pillow Dance; the Joyce Theater; Margaret Jenkins Dance Company; Mark Morris Dance Group; ODC Dance/San Francisco; Stephen Petronio Company; Ragamala Dance; STREB; Paul Taylor Dance Company; Urban Bush Women; and White Bird. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is named after the late philanthropist and gives money to support work in medicine, environmentalism and the arts. Chicago Tribune Photo 
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago is an American dance company based in Chicago. Hubbard Street performs in downtown Chicago at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance and at the Edlis Neeson Theater at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Hubbard Street also tours nationally and internationally throughout the year. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago grew out of the Lou Conte Dance Studio, when in 1977 several aspiring young artists approached dance teacher/choreographer Lou Conte to teach tap classes. At the time, the studio was located at the corner of LaSalle Street and Hubbard Street, which is how the company acquired its name. Conte served as director for 23 years, during which he developed relationships with choreographers including Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Margo Sappington, Daniel Ezralow, Nacho Duato, Jirí Kylián and Twyla Tharp, all of whom helped shape Hubbard Street’s repertoire. Wikipedia

I Was a Dancer By Jacques D'Amboise

Publication Date: March 1, 2011  

“Who am I? I’m a man; an American, a father, a teacher, but most of all, I am a person who knows how the arts can change lives, because they transformed mine. I was a dancer.”

In this rich, expansive, spirited memoir, Jacques d’Amboise, one of America’s most celebrated classical dancers, and former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet for more than three decades, tells the extraordinary story of his life in dance, and of America’s most renowned and admired dance companies. He writes of his classical studies beginning at the age of eight at The School of American Ballet. At twelve he was asked to perform with Ballet Society; three years later he joined the New York City Ballet and made his European debut at London’s Covent Garden.

As George Balanchine’s protégé, d’Amboise had more works choreographed on him by “the supreme Ballet Master” than any other dancer, among them Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux; Episodes; A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream; Jewels; Raymonda Variations.

He writes of his boyhood—born Joseph Ahearn—in Dedham, Massachusetts; his mother (“the Boss”) moving the family to New York City’s Washington Heights; dragging her son and daughter to ballet class (paying the teacher $7.50 from hats she made and sold on street corners, and with chickens she cooked stuffed with chestnuts); his mother changing the family name from Ahearn to her maiden name, d’Amboise (“It’s aristocratic. It has the ‘d’ apostrophe. It sounds better for the ballet, and it’s a better name”).

We see him. a neighborhood tough, in Catholic schools being taught by the nuns; on the streets, fighting with neighborhood gangs, and taking ten classes a week at the School of American Ballet . . . being taught professional class by Balanchine and by other teachers of great legend: Anatole Oboukhoff, premier danseur of the Maryinsky; and Pierre Vladimiroff, Pavlova’s partner.

D’Amboise writes about Balanchine’s succession of ballerina muses who inspired him to near-obsessive passion and led him to create extraordinary ballets, dancers with whom d’Amboise partnered—Maria Tallchief; Tanaquil LeClercq, a stick-skinny teenager who blossomed into an exquisite, witty, sophisticated “angel” with her “long limbs and dramatic, mysterious elegance . . .”; the iridescent Allegra Kent; Melissa Hayden; Suzanne Farrell, who Balanchine called his “alabaster princess,” her every fiber, every movement imbued with passion and energy; Kay Mazzo; Kyra Nichols (“She’s perfect,” Balanchine said. “Uncomplicated—like fresh water”); and Karin von Aroldingen, to whom Balanchine left most of his ballets.

D’Amboise writes about dancing with and courting one of the company’s members, who became his wife for fifty-three years, and the four children they had . . . On going to Hollywood to make Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and being offered a long-term contract at MGM (“If you’re not careful,” Balanchine warned, “you will have sold your soul for seven years”) . . . On Jerome Robbins (“Jerry could be charming and complimentary, and then, five minutes later, attack, and crush your spirit—all to see how it would influence the dance movements”).

D’Amboise writes of the moment when he realizes his dancing career is over and he begins a new life and new dream teaching children all over the world about the arts through the magic of dance.

A riveting, magical book, as transformative as dancing itself. Amazon.com The New Yorker

Palestinian dancer seeks change through ballet

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories - Ramallah dancer Shireen Ziyadeh wants to use pirouettes and plies to change the place where she grew up, training aspiring ballerinas to show that "something beautiful comes from Palestine". In tights and a white tunic, her hair scraped back in a flawless bun, the 24-year-old Palestinian repeats instructions to a group of tiny dancers in pink tutus and slippers at her ballet school in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The idea of teaching ballet to little girls came to the young management studies graduate four years ago. "I wanted to bring something new and offer them other perspectives on the future," she told AFP. "Ballet, which is a major art form, is a good way to revolutionise traditional Palestinian culture," she said. "I'm not only teaching them to dance but also how to integrate with others." Ziyadeh's is not the first ballet school in Ramallah - she herself learned to dance here in her childhood - but she is one of just a handful of teachers across the Palestinian territories. "Teaching ballet and its philosophy (here) is also a way of showing the world that something beautiful comes from Palestine," she said. Opened in May 2011, the Ramallah Ballet Centre says on its website that it offers "the ability to dance, act and think in more positive ways". AFP AsiaOne