From Christiane Vaussard in Paris, to David Howard in New York City and Larisa Sklyanskaya in San Francisco, Gretchen Warren profiles ten world-renowned master ballet teachers to capture their philosophies, training methods and the classroom presence that makes their instruction magical. Based on extensive interviews and classroom observation, each profile is an entertaining and enlightening mix of personal anecdotes and details about teaching techniques, class content and organisation. Warren also includes a section of signature exercises drawn from each teacher. Because of the master teacher's diversity of styles and methods, as well as their occasional disputes with traditional wisdom, the book offers a brisk stimulant for reflecting on the values of developing and holding true to one's own style and beliefs. Warren combines her years of experience as a dancer and master ballet teacher and her engaging writing style to create a living history of 20th-century classical ballet training. Like their legions of students, readers should appreciate not only these teachers' philosophies, their endless curiosity and their devotion to ballet, but also what distinguishes them. As Warren observes, ""A great teacher, like a great chef, is a master at presentation, at making something - even something as painstakingly difficult as the study of classical ballet - so palatable that students swallow without hesitation. And do so joyfully!"".

In this memoir of a roller coaster career on the New York stage, former actor and dancer Bettijane Sills offers a highly personal look at the art and practice of George Balanchine, one of ballet's greatest choreographers, and the inner workings of his world-renowned company during its golden years. After getting her start on the stage as a child actor on Broadway, Bettijane Sills joined the New York City Ballet in 1961 as a member of the corps de ballet, working her way up to the level of soloist. As a company dancer who remained outside the spotlight that the principals enjoyed, Sills experienced a side of the company that prima ballerinas did not share in. She tells stories of taking class with Balanchine, dancing in the original casts of some of his most iconic productions, and working with some of the company's most famous dancers. Winningly honest and intimate, Sills lets readers in on the secrets of a world that most people have never seen firsthand. She reveals mistakes she made, the unglamorous parts of tour life, jealousy among company members, and Balanchine's complex relationships with women. She talks about Balanchine's insistence on thinness in his dancers and how her own struggles with weight ended her dancing career. Now a professor of dance who has educated thousands of students on Balanchine's style and legacy, Sills reflects on the highs and lows of a career indelibly influenced by the bright lights of theater and by the man who shaped American ballet.

Marian Smith recaptures a rich period in French musical theater when ballet and opera were intimately connected. Focusing on the age of "Giselle" at the Paris Opera (from the 1830s through the 1840s), Smith offers an unprecedented look at the structural and thematic relationship between the two genres. She argues that a deeper understanding of both ballet and opera--and of nineteenth-century theater-going culture in general--may be gained by examining them within the same framework instead of following the usual practice of telling their histories separately. This handsomely illustrated book ultimately provides a new portrait of the Opera during a period long celebrated for its box-office successes in both genres.

Smith begins by showing how gestures were encoded in the musical language that composers used in ballet and in opera. She moves on to a wide range of topics, including the relationship between the gestures of the singers and the movements of the dancers, and the distinction between dance that represents dancing (entertainment staged within the story of the opera) and dance that represents action. Smith maintains that ballet-pantomime and opera continued to rely on each other well into the nineteenth century, even as they thrived independently. The "divorce" between the two arts occurred little by little, and may be traced through unlikely sources: controversies in the press about the changing nature of ballet-pantomime music, shifting ideas about originality, complaints about the ridiculousness of pantomime, and a little-known rehearsal score for "Giselle.""

Prominent components of Louis XIV's propaganda, the arts of spectacle also became sources of a potent resistance to the monarchy in late seventeenth-century France. With a particular focus on the court ballet, comedy-ballet, opera, and opera-ballet, Georgia J. Cowart tells the long-neglected story of how the festive arts deployed an intricate network of subversive satire to undermine the rhetoric of sovereign authority.
With bold revisionist strokes, Cowart traces this strain of artistic dissent through the comedy-ballets of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Moliere, the late operatic works of Lully and the operas of his sons, the opera-ballets of Andre Campra and his contemporaries, and the related imagery of Antoine Watteau's well-known painting "The Pilgrimage to Cythera." She contends that through a variety of means, including the parody of old-fashioned court entertainments, these works reclaimed traditional allegories for new ideological aims, setting the tone for the Enlightenment. Exploring these arts from the perspective of spectacle as it emerged from the court into the Parisian public sphere, Cowart ultimately situates the ballet and related genres as the missing link between an imagery of propaganda and an imagery of political protest.

Text in Danish with an introduction in German. The Lumbye-catalogue is a catalogue of printed ballet and dance compositions by the Danish composer H C Lumbye. It provides us with a chronological survey of his printed works including a detailed index. The works were performed by Tivoli's orchestra which he conducted from its establishment in 1843. Co-published by The Royal Library in Copenhagen and Museum Tusculanum Press.

Thalia Mara’s story spans the history of dance in the twentieth century and the rise of the arts in her adopted city of Jackson, Mississippi. As an adolescent Mara (1911–2003) studied with renowned Russian teacher Adolph Bolm, who recommended she go at age sixteen to Paris for further study. During a tour in Europe and South America, she met her partner in dance and life, Arthur Mahoney, and they dazzled the world with their breathtaking performances during the 1930s and '40s. The two were named codirectors of Jacob’s Pillow in 1947, gracing the cover of Life magazine that year. Later they started two schools of dance in New York City, but despite much success, they closed due to lack of funding. That misfortune, however, was Jackson’s boon as it led Mara to the second phase of her career: reviving the Jackson Ballet Company and bringing the USA International Ballet Competition (IBC) to the state. Thalia Mara was recognized at the end of her life not only for the USA IBC’s decision to locate in Jackson, but also for her efforts as a patron of the arts. Her extraordinary fundraising and planning attracted international performers to the city in the 1980s and '90s. To Dance, to Live: A Biography of Thalia Mara gives the first full account of a life devoted to the arts.

Founder of the Philadelphia Dance Company (PHILADANCO) and the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts, Joan Myers Brown's personal and professional histories reflect both the hardships and the accomplishments of African Americans in the artistic and social developments through the twentieth century and into the new millennium. Dixon Gottschild deftly uses Brown's career as the fulcrum to leverage an exploration of the connection between performance, society, and race-beginning with Brown's predecessors in the 1920s-and a concert dance tradition that has had no previous voice to tell its story from the inside out. Augmented by interviews with a score of dance professionals, including Billy Wilson, Gene Hill Sagan, Rennie Harris, Milton Myers, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and Ronald K. Brown, Joan Myers Brown's background and richly contoured biography are object lessons in survival-a true American narrative.

Beginning Ballet and the accompanying web resource introduce students to the study of ballet as a performing art and provide instructional support in learning foundational ballet technique. Part of Human Kinetics' Interactive Dance Series, Beginning Ballet is for students enrolled in a beginning ballet class at the college, university, or high school level. The book features more than 80 photos and concise descriptions covering basic foot and arm positions, barre exercises, and centre combinations. Beginning Ballet introduces students to the structure of a ballet class, including expectations, etiquette, and attire. Students also learn how to prepare for class, maintain proper nutrition and hydration, and avoid injury. This text outlines the unique history of ballet from its beginnings in the Renaissance to the 21st century and discusses the styles, aesthetics, artists, and significant works that have shaped ballet as a performing art. In addition, the accompanying web resource presents more than 70 instructional video clips and 50 photos to help students learn and practice beginning ballet. The web resource also includes an interactive quiz, audio clips of ballet terms with pronunciation in French, and assignments. The quiz covers vocabulary of beginning ballet, definitions, and translation to and from the French language. (The web resource is included with all new print books and some ebooks. For ebook formats that don't provide access, the web resource is available separately.) Ballet class provides the foundation for learning the dance form, and Beginning Ballet supports that learning through visual, verbal, and interactive instructional tools. Beginning Ballet text and web resource help bring the grace, artistry, and mental and physical benefits of ballet to students. Beginning Ballet is a part of Human Kinetics' Interactive Dance Series. The series includes resources for modern dance, ballet, and tap dance that support introductory dance technique courses taught through dance, physical education, and fine arts departments. Each student-friendly text includes a web resource offering video clips of dance instruction, assignments, and activities. The Interactive Dance Series offers students a guide to learning, performing, and viewing dance.

However difficult the Soviet era was for the peoples of Russia, its seventy-four years represented a true golden age for classical ballet. It was characterised by a wholescale repurposing of the art form from being the 'golden rattle' of the tsars to the most potent cultural weapon in the Communist regime's armoury in its struggles with the West. The Golden Age presents a detailed overview of the development of ballet in Soviet Russia, from its fight for survival in the early years after the 1917 revolutions through the political demands of Stalin's rule, the shock of armed conflict with Germany and the onset of the Cold War. As the century progressed, Soviet ballet was not immune to outside influences hastened by the onset of cultural visits and exchanges; it also suffered the defection of dancers and ultimately opened up further with perestroika in the 1980s and the fall of Communist rule in 1991. Gerald Dowler sets the complex, shifting world of Russian ballet in its political and social contexts and explores the contributions of major choreographers, dancers and teachers in creating the phenomenon of what is celebrated around the world as 'Russian ballet'. Their achievements in creating the Soviet Golden Age were truly remarkable.

The Feeling Balletbody introduces the innovative teaching concept BalletBodyLogic, the brainchild of teacher, dancer and choreographer Annemari Autere. Accompanied by charming illustrations by Raphaelle Zemella, The Feeling Balletbody reveals how dancers can effortlessly enhance their posture and movement by conscious use of the red muscle fibers and the internal movement of the connective tissue. Annemari also busts some of the biggest ballet myths, using science and her extensive experience as a professional dancer. Annemari Autere is a member of several professional groups, which include the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, Nordic Forum for Dance Research, World Dance Alliance, Conseil International de Danse, and the International Somatic Movement Education & Therapy Association. A former dancer at the Norwegian National Ballet and the Royal Swedish Ballet, Annemari Autere developed her method of BalletBodyLogic during her 15 years as an associate professor at the Arts Department of the University in Nice.

'Swan Dive is to ballet what Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was to restaurants, a chance to go behind the serene front of house to the sweaty, foul-mouthed, psychofrenzy backstage.' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet - the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don't see from the orchestra circle. In this love letter to the art of dance and the sport that has been her livelihood, NYCB's first Asian American female soloist Georgina Pazcoguin lays bare her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training amid the unique demands of being a hybrid professional athlete/artist, all before finishing high school. She pitches us into the fascinating, whirling shoes of dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world with an unapologetic sense of humour about the cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality at NYCB. Some swan dives are literal: even in the ballet, there are plenty of face-plants, backstage fights, late-night parties, and raucous company bonding sessions. Rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement, NYCB sits at an inflection point, inching toward progress in a strictly traditional culture, and Pazcoguin doesn't shy away from ballet's dark side. She continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against the sexual harassment, mental abuse, and racism that in the past went unrecognized or was tacitly accepted as par for the course - all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand. Tying together Pazcoguin's fight for equality in the ballet with her infectious and deeply moving passion for her craft, Swan Dive is a page-turning, one-of-a-kind account that guarantees you'll never view a ballerina or a ballet the same way again.

This autobiography by Leanne Benjamin with Sarah Crompton reveals the extraordinary life and career of one of the worlds most important ballet dancers of the past fifty years. The book takes you behind the scenes to find a real understanding of the pleasure and the pain, the demands and the intense commitment it requires to become a ballet dancer. It is a book for ballet-lovers which will explain from Benjamins personal point of view, how ballet has changed and is changing. It is a book of history: she was first taught by the people who created ballet in its modern form and now she works with the dancers of today, handing on all she has known and learnt. But it is also a book for people who are just interested in the psychology of achievement, how you go from being a child in small-town Rockhampton in the centre of Australia to being a power on the worlds biggest stages -- and how an individual copes with the ups and downs of that kind of career. It is a story full of big names and big personalities -- Margot Fonteyn, Kenneth MacMillan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta to name a few. President Clinton, Michelle Obama, Diana Princess of Wales and David Beckham all make an appearance. But it is also a book of small moments of insight: what makes a performance special, how you recover from injury, illness and childbirth; how you combine athletic and artistic prowess with motherhood, how a different partner can alter everything, what it is like to fall over in front of thousands of people and what it is like to triumph. Above all, it seeks to explain, in warm and human terms, why women get the reputation for being difficult in a world where being a good girl is too much prized. And what they can do about it.

Joy Melville's major biography of the Russian impresario brings to life a brief and daring age of sophisticated and hedonistic pleasure set against the backdrop of a swiftly changing world. In Paris and London, Sergei Diaghilev drew together an amazingly talented group of like-minded artists such as Picasso, Bakst, and Fokine, as well as dancers like Nijinsky, Lifar, and Karsavina, and the composers Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. Diaghilev's tempestuous and destructive affair with his protege Nijinsky and his friendship with Jean Cocteau are closely examined.

Martha Ullman West illustrates how American ballet developed over the course of the twentieth century from an aesthetic originating in the courts of Europe into a stylistically diverse expression of a democratic culture. West places at center stage two artists who were instrumental to this story: Todd Bolender and Janet Reed.Lifelong friends, Bolender (1914-2006) and Reed (1916-2000) were part of a generation of dancers who navigated the Great Depression, World War II, and the vibrant cultural scene of postwar New York City. They danced in the works of choreographers Lew and Willam Christensen, Eugene Loring, Agnes de Mille, Catherine Littlefield, Ruthanna Boris, and others who West argues were just as responsible for the direction of American ballet as the legendary George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. The stories of Bolender, Reed, and their contemporaries also demonstrate that the flowering of American ballet was not simply a New York phenomenon. West includes little-known details about how Bolender and Reed laid the foundations for Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet in the 1970s and how Bolender transformed the Kansas City Ballet into a highly respected professional company soon after. Passionate in their desire to dance and create dances, Bolender and Reed committed their lives to passing along their hard-won knowledge, training, and work. This book celebrates two unsung trailblazers who were pivotal to the establishment of ballet in America from one coast to the other.

The Legat Legacy brings back into print two classic works that offer rare insights into the golden age of Russian ballet. The first, Ballet Russe: Memoirs of Nicolas Legat, takes readers into the last three decades of the Imperial Ballet before the 1917 Russian Revolution. Written by Nicolas Legat (1869-1937), one of the great creative geniuses of classical ballet, these memoirs recount Legat's experiences as principal dancer before he fled to Europe to escape the Russian Civil War. The book is filled with memorable character descriptions and includes some of Legat's unique, celebrated caricatures.The second, Heritage of a Ballet Master: Nicolas Legat, is a valuable testament to Legat's classroom pedagogy. Assembled by Legat student, professional dancer, and prolific author John Gregory (1914-1996) to showcase the four complete classes that Legat wrote out by hand for his student the ballet star Andre Eglevsky (1917-1977), this book also features several Legat classes remembered by other students. In addition, it contains music for the classes, Legat's drawings, photographs of him in performance, and other archival material. It includes a brief biography of Legat and fascinating remembrances from his former students, among them Alicia Markova and Leonide Massine, and a forward by Alexandra Danilova. Marked by their variety and musicality, Legat's teachings are preserved here for future generations of dancers to discover.

This is the first authorized biography of four twentieth-century American Indian ballerinas: Marjorie Tallchief, Rosella Hightower, Marjorie Tallchief, and Yvonne Chouteau. Each grew up in Oklahoma during the 1920s and 1930s and went on to achieve international fame. Lili Cockerille Livingston, who worked with all four ballerinas during her own career as a dancer, draws upon her extensive interviews with the women to bring their stories to life while also shedding new light both on the development of New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the now-defunct Harkness Ballet and Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas.