The current notion of ballet history holds that the theatrical dance of the eighteenth century was simple, earthbound, and limited in range of motion scarcely different from the ballroom dance of the same period. Contemporary opinion also maintains that this early form of ballet was largely a stranger to the tours de force of grand jumps, multiple turns, and lifts so typical of classical ballet, owing to a supposed prevailing sense of Victorian-like decorum. The Styles of Eighteenth-Century Ballet explodes this utterly false view of ballet history, showing that there were in fact a variety of different styles of dance cultivated in this era, from the simple to the remarkably difficult, from the dignified earthbound to the spirited airborne, from the gravely serious to the grotesquely ridiculous. This is a fascinating exploration of the various styles of eighteenth-century dance covering ballroom and ballet, the four traditional styles of theatrical dance, regional preferences for given styles, and the importance of caprice, dance according to gender, the overall voluptuous nature of stage dancing, and finally dance notation and costume. Fairfax takes the reader on an in-depth journey through the world of ballet in the age of Mozart, Boucher, and Casanova.

Floating Bones charts the author's journey into tensegrity, which begins in ballet and culminates in a model for addressing one's body as a teacher. Tensegrity flips traditional biomechanical models such that instead of support coming from the bones, the bones float, and it is the muscles and other soft connective tissue that provide support for the moving body. Using the model of tensegretic experience, Roses-Thema connects somatics, cognition, rhetoric, and reflective practices detailing the means that constructed approaching the body as a teacher. This study presents the argument for extending the models of thinking to include bodily thinking, by citing how the experiential perspective of tensegrity constructs physical evidence of the rhetorical concept, metis, where the body thinks as it moves. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of dance, theater, and sociology.

A history of the development of ballet designed for dance history courses. The discussion moves from the origins of dance through the middle ages onto the beginnings of ballet, to Renaissance spectacle in Italy, and the beginnings of ballet in France. Then in the second part of the book, the maturation of ballet as a style is studied, from the 1600s through the 1800s, in Europe. The last part of the book focuses on the changes n ballet through the twentieth century.

Hope in a Ballet Shoe tells the story of Michaela DePrince. Growing up in war-torn Sierra Leone, she witnessed atrocities that no child ever should. Her father was killed by rebels and her mother died of famine. Sent to an orphanage, Michaela was mistreated and saw the brutal murder of her favourite teacher. Then Michaela and her best friend are adopted by an American couple, and Michaela begins to take dance lessons. But life in the States isn't without difficulties. Unfortunately, tragedy can find its way to Michaela in America, too, and her past can feel like it's haunting her. The world of ballet is a racist one, and Michaela has to fight for a place amongst the ballet elite, hearing the words 'America's not ready for a black girl ballerina.' And yet . . . Today, Michaela DePrince is an international ballet star, dancing for The Dutch National Ballet at the age of nineteen. This is a heart-breaking, inspiring autobiography by a teenager who shows us that, beyond everything, there is always hope for a better future.

International vaudeville star and Broadway prima ballerina Jeanne Devereaux performed for millions across Europe and America in her prime. Born Jean Helman, she entered showbiz young as a trouper performing in palatial theaters and was one of the last vaudevillians surviving into the 2010s. In her final years she indulged her passion for research and writing in the Huntington Library's Rothenberg Reading Room, losing none of her intelligence and wit despite a failing memory. Drawing on interviews, show programs and her personal diary and letters, this biography illuminates the life and career of one of vaudeville's stars of stage, film and television.

Dancing Motherhood explores how unique factors about the dance profession impact mothers working in it. Ali Duffy introduces the book by laying a foundation of social and cultural histories and trends leading to the issues mothers in dance negotiate today. This study then reveals perspectives from mothers in dance working in areas such as performance choreography, dance education, writing, and advocacy though survey and interview data. Based on participant responses, recommendations for changes in policy, hiring, evaluation, and other work practices to better support working mothers in dance are outlined and discussed. Finally, essays from five working mothers in dance offers more intimate, personal stories and guidance geared to mothers, future mothers, and colleagues and supervisors of mothers in the dance field. By describing lived experiences and offering suggestions for improved working conditions and self-advocacy, this book initiates expanded discussion about women in dance and promotes change to positively impact dancing mothers, their employers, and the dance field.

The stigmatization of mental illness in film has been well documented in literature. Little has been written, however, about the ability of movies to portray mental illness sympathetically and accurately. People Like Ourselves: Portrayals of Mental Illness in the Movies fills that void with a close look at mental illness in more than seventy American movies, beginning with classics such as The Snake Pit and Now, Voyager and including such contemporary successes as A Beautiful Mind and As Good as It Gets. Films by legendary directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and John Cassavetes are included. Through the examination of universal themes relating to one's self and society, the denial of reality, the role of women, creativity, war, and violence, Zimmerman argues that these ground-breaking films defy stereotypes, presenting sympathetic portraits of people who are mentally ill, and advance the movie-going public's understanding of mental illness, while providing insight into its causes, diagnosis, and treatment. More importantly, they portray mentally ill people as ordinary people with conflicts and desires common to everyone. Like the motion pictures it revisits, this fascinating book offers insight, entertainment, and a sense of understanding.

Ballet impresario Sergey Pavlovich Diaghilev and composer Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev are eminent figures in twentieth-century cultural history, yet this is the first detailed account of their fifteen-year collaboration. The beginning was not trouble-free, but despite two false starts (Ala i Lolli and the first version of its successor, Chout) Diaghilev maintained his confidence in the composer. With his guidance and encouragement Prokofiev established his mature balletic style. After some years of estrangement during which Prokofiev wrote for choreographer Boris Romanov and conductor/publisher Serge Koussevitsky, Diaghilev came to the composer's rescue at a low point in his Western career. The impresario encouraged Prokofiev's turn towards 'a new simplicity' and offered him a great opportunity for career renewal with a topical ballet on Soviet life (Le Pas d'acier). Even as late as 1928-29 Diaghilev compelled Prokofiev to achieve new heights of expressivity in his characterizations (L'Enfant prodigue). Although Western scholars have investigated Prokofiev's operas, piano works, and symphonies, little attention has been paid to his early ballets written for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Despite Prokofiev's devotion to opera, it was his ballets for Diaghilev as much as his concertos and solo piano works that earned his renown in Western Europe in the 1920s. Stephen D. Press discusses the genesis of each ballet, including the important contributions of the scenic designers (Mikhail Larionov, Georgy Yakulov and Georges Rouault) and the choreographer/dancers (Leonid Massine, Serge Lifar and George Balanchine), and the special relationship between the ballets' progenitors.

"A Queer History of the Ballet "is the first book-length study of ballet's queerness. It theorizes the queer potential of the ballet look, and provides historical analyses of queer artists and spectatorships. It demonstrates that ballet was a crucial means of coming to visibility, of evolving and articulating a queer consciousness in periods when it was dangerous and illegal to be homosexual. It also shows that ballet continues to be a key element of the dance cultures through which queerness is explored. The book moves from the 19th century through the post-modern era, bringing together an important array of creative figures and movements, including Romantic ballet; Tchaikovsky; Diaghilev; Genet; Fonteyn; New York City Ballet; Neumeier; Bourne; Bausch; and Morris. It discusses the making and performance history of key works, including "La Sylphide, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty," and "Swan Lake."
"
A Queer History of the Ballet "will be especially useful to students and scholars involved in the growing number of courses on queer culture, theatre studies, dance history, gender studies, and cross-disciplinary approaches to literature. It is written in a lively, clear style that will make it accessible to the non-academic reader who has an interest in queer and/or dance history.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Celebrating the diversity of dance across the South Pacific, this volume studies the various experiences, motivations and aims for dance, emerging from the voices of dance professionals in the islands. In particular, it focuses on the interplay of cultures and pathways of migration as people move across the region discovering new routes and connections.

A series of interviews with some of the foremost dancers in twentieth-century ballet, Never Far from Dancing reflects on the paths that their careers have taken since they retired from the stage. Barbara Newman has expertly edited each of her interviews to read as a monologue, addressing every aspect of ballet, from its styles and technical demands to its personalities, its celebrated roles and, most of all, to what happens when the dancing stops. While ballet invites all manner of writing from critics, admirers and academics, the thoughts and experiences of the dancers themselves are seldom recorded. Here, those who scaled the heights of their art hand down their wisdom and recount lives spent in this most enduring of art forms.

A series of interviews with some of the foremost dancers in twentieth-century ballet, Never Far from Dancing reflects on the paths that their careers have taken since they retired from the stage. Barbara Newman has expertly edited each of her interviews to read as a monologue, addressing every aspect of ballet, from its styles and technical demands to its personalities, its celebrated roles and, most of all, to what happens when the dancing stops. While ballet invites all manner of writing from critics, admirers and academics, the thoughts and experiences of the dancers themselves are seldom recorded. Here, those who scaled the heights of their art hand down their wisdom and recount lives spent in this most enduring of art forms.

The eleven contributors to this volume investigate the connections between Nabokov's output and the fields of painting, music, and ballet.

The 'ballet d'action' was one of the most successful and controversial forms of theatre in the early modern period. A curious hybrid of dance, mime and music, its overall and overriding intention was to create drama. It was danced drama rather than dramatic dance; musical drama rather than dramatic music. Most modern critical studies of the ballet d'action treat it more narrowly as stage dance, and very few view it as part of the history of mime. Little use has previously been made of the most revealing musical evidence. This innovative book does justice to the distinctive hybrid nature of the ballet d'action by taking a comparative approach, using contemporary literature and literary criticism, music, mime and dance from a wide range of English and European sources. Edward Nye presents a fascinating study of this important and influential part of eighteenth-century European theatre.

"Surely you would like to be immortalised in art, fixed forever in perfection?" Sadler's Wells, 1933. I would kill to dance like her. Disciplined and dedicated, Olivia is the perfect ballerina. But no matter how hard she works, she can never match identical twin Clara's charm. I would kill to be with her. As rehearsals intensify for the ballet Coppelia, the girls feel increasingly like they are being watched. And, as infatuation turns to obsession, everything begins to unravel.

Belle-epoque Paris witnessed the emergence of a vibrant and diverse dance scene, one that crystallized around the Ballets Russes, the Russian dance company formed by impresario Sergey Diaghilev. The company has long served as a convenient turning point in the history of dance, celebrated for its revolutionary choreography and innovative productions. This book presents a fresh slant on this much-told history. Focusing on the relation between music and dance, Davinia Caddy approaches the Ballets Russes with a wide-angled lens that embraces not just the choreographic, but also the cultural, political, theatrical and aesthetic contexts in which the company made its name. In addition, Caddy examines and interprets contemporary French dance practices, throwing new light on some of the most important debates and discourses of the day.

The collection of essays demonstrates that ballet is not a single White Western dance form but has been shaped by a range of other cultures. In so doing, the authors open a conversation and contribute to the discourse beyond the vantage point of mainstream to look at such issues as homosexuality and race. And to demonstrate that ballet's denial of the first and exclusion of the second needs rethinking. This is an important contribution to dance scholarship. The contributors include professional ballet dancers and teachers, choreographers, and dance scholars in the UK, Europe and the USA to give a three dimensional overview of the field of ballet beyond the traditional mainstream. It sets out to acknowledge the alternative and parallel influences that have shaped the culture of ballet and demonstrates they are alive, kicking and have a rich history. Ballet is complex and encompasses individuals and communities, often invisiblized, but who have contributed to the diaspora of ballet in the twenty-first century. It will initiate conversations and contribute to discourses about the panorama of ballet beyond the narrow vantage point of the mainstream - White, patriarchal, Eurocentric, heterosexual constructs of gender, race and class. This book is certain to be a much-valued resource within the field of ballet studies, as well as an important contribution to dance scholarship more broadly. It has an original focus and brings together issues more commonly addressed only in journals, where issues of race are frequently discussed. The primary market will be academic. It will appeal to academics, researchers, scholars and students working and studying in dance, theatre and performance arts and cultural studies. It will also be of interest to dance professionals and practitioners. Academics and students interested in the intersection of gender, race and dance may also find it interesting.

THE BALLET COMPANION is the first complete, illustrated reference book for the dancer. With more than 150 stunning photographs of ballet greats Maria Riccetto and Benjamin Millepied demonstrating perfect execution of positions and steps, THE BALLET COMPANION brims with everything today's dance student needs including: * Practical advice for getting started, such as finding the right teacher, fitting a pointe shoe, tying a ballet bun * Training safely through a sensible diet, injury prevention, and cross training with yoga and Pilates * Inside information on backstage and studio etiquette and auditioning * Technique secrets from stars of American Ballet Theatre * Glossaries and lavishly illustrated sidebars on ballet history and 'Must See' ballets Whether a budding ballerina, serious student, or adult returning to ballet, dancers will find a graceful mix of ballet traditions and essential, new information.

Focusing on politics, gender, and identities, a group of international dance scholars provide a broad overview of new methodological approaches - with specific case studies - and how they can be applied to the study of ballet and modern dance. With an introduction exploring the history of dance studies and the development of central themes and areas of concerns in the field, the book is then divided into three parts: politics explores 'Ausdruckstanz' - an expressive dance tradition first formulated in the 1920s by dancer Mary Wigman and carried forward in the work of Pina Bausch and others gender examines eighteenth century theatrical dance - a time when elaborate sets, costumes, and plots examined racial and sexual stereotypes identity is concerned with modern dance. Exploring contemporary analytical approaches to understanding performance traditions, Dance Discourses' pedagogical structure makes it ideal for courses in performing arts and humanities.

Focusing on Politics, Gender, and Identities, a group of international dance scholars provide a broad overview of new methodological approaches - with specific case studies - and how they can be applied to the study of ballet and modern dance.

With an introduction exploring the history of dance studies and the development of central themes and areas of concerns in the field, the book is then divided into three parts:

• politics explores 'Ausdruckstanz' - an expressive dance tradition first formulated in the 1920s by dancer Mary Wigman and carried forward in the work of Pina Bausch and others
• gender examines eighteenth century theatrical dance - a time when elaborate sets, costumes, and plots examined racial and sexual stereotypes
• identity is concerned with modern dance.

Exploring contemporary analytical approaches to understanding performance traditions, Dance Discourses' pedagogical structure makes it ideal for courses in performing arts and humanities.

Ballet impresario Sergey Pavlovich Diaghilev and composer Sergey Sergeyevich Prokofiev are eminent figures in twentieth-century cultural history, yet this is the first detailed account of their fifteen-year collaboration. The beginning was not trouble-free, but despite two false starts (Ala i Lolli and the first version of its successor, Chout) Diaghilev maintained his confidence in the composer. With his guidance and encouragement Prokofiev established his mature balletic style. After some years of estrangement during which Prokofiev wrote for choreographer Boris Romanov and conductor/publisher Serge Koussevitsky, Diaghilev came to the composer's rescue at a low point in his Western career. The impresario encouraged Prokofiev's turn towards 'a new simplicity' and offered him a great opportunity for career renewal with a topical ballet on Soviet life (Le Pas d'acier). Even as late as 1928-29 Diaghilev compelled Prokofiev to achieve new heights of expressivity in his characterizations (L'Enfant prodigue). Although Western scholars have investigated Prokofiev's operas, piano works, and symphonies, little attention has been paid to his early ballets written for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Despite Prokofiev's devotion to opera, it was his ballets for Diaghilev as much as his concertos and solo piano works that earned his renown in Western Europe in the 1920s. Stephen D. Press discusses the genesis of each ballet, including the important contributions of the scenic designers (Mikhail Larionov, Georgy Yakulov and Georges Rouault) and the choreographer/dancers (Leonid Massine, Serge Lifar and George Balanchine), and the special relationship between the ballets' progenitors.

Maurice Ravel, as composer and scenario writer, collaborated with some of the greatest ballet directors, choreographers, designers and dancers of his time, including Diaghilev, Ida Rubinstein, Benois and Nijinsky. In this book, the first study dedicated to Ravel's ballets, Deborah Mawer explores these relationships and argues that ballet music should not be regarded in isolation from its associated arts. Indeed, Ravel's views on ballet and other stage works privilege a synthesized aesthetic. The first chapter establishes a historical and critical context for Ravel's scores, engaging en route with multimedia theory. Six main ballets from Daphnis et Chloe through to Bolero are considered holistically alongside themes such as childhood fantasy, waltzing and neoclassicism. Each work is examined in terms of its evolution, premiere, critical reception and reinterpretation through to the present; new findings result from primary-source research, undertaken especially in Paris. The final chapter discusses the reasons for Ravel's collaborations and the strengths and weaknesses of his interpersonal relations. Mawer emphasizes the importance of the performative dimension in realizing Ravel's achievement, and proposes that the composer's large-scale oeuvre can, in a sense, be viewed as a balletic undertaking. In so doing, this book adds significantly to current research interest in artistic production and interplay in early twentieth-century Paris.

For nearly a century, the training of ballet and modern dancers has followed two divergent paths. Modern practitioners felt ballet was artificial and injurious to the body; ballet teachers felt that modern dancers lacked the rigorous discipline and control that comes only from years of progressive training.

Ballet Beyond Tradition seeks to reconcile these age-old conflicts and bring a new awareness to ballet teachers of the importance of a holistic training regimen that draws on the best that modern dance and movement-studies offers.