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Book Review: How They Became Famous Dancers – A Dancing History

April 26, 2017 by 4dancers

by Catherine L. Tully

This lovely book was sent to us by Anne Dunkin (the author) for review, and it’s easy to recommend. Dunkin has assembled a very interesting resource that would serve as a great tool for those teaching middle school, or even to have on hand at a dance studio library. It’s also a good read, just to add to your own personal knowledge of dance. It tells the stories of 12 dancers (6 male and 6 female) from various parts of the world, focusing on their childhoods and rise to prominence as a dancer.

Many different places are represented, including Mexico, Japan, India, Africa, and the United States. Every chapter begins with the dancer’s background, and outlines their journey to becoming a dancer. The information is coupled with black and white photographs, as well as a “Create A Dance” section at the end of the chapter, which is designed to give children a feel for the type of movement that particular dancer was known for. The dancers that are included in this book span a variety of different genres, ranging from ballet to Bharata Natyam, to Modern dance. There is even a little map in the beginning that shows where each dancer was from for reference.

This unique and interesting approach makes the book an especially good resource for teachers, since material of this nature is often difficult to find. The chapters lend themselves to either being used in their entirety, or as rich material to add to a lecture. The dancers that are covered here include:

  • Louis XIV
  • John Durang
  • Marie Taglioni
  • William Henry “Juba” Lane
  • Anna Pavlova
  • Rudolph Laban
  • Doris Humphrey
  • Michio Ito
  • Mrinalini Sarabhai
  • Pearl Primus
  • Amalia Hernandez
  • Arthur Mitchell

I’ve been in the field for over 40 years, and I learned quite a bit from reading this book myself. Don’t hesitate to add it to your library!

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Filed Under: Books & Magazines, Reviews Tagged With: a dancing history, Amalia Hernandez, anna pavlova, Anne Dunkin, arthur mitchell, ballet book, doris humphrey, How They Became Famous Dancers, John Durang, Louis XIV, Marie Taglioni, Michio Ito, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Pearl Primus, rudolph laban, William Henry "Juba" Lane

Book Review: Anna Pavlova Twentieth Century Ballerina

June 21, 2014 by 4dancers

Screen shot 2014-06-16 at 12.14.31 PM

Anna Pavlova Twentieth Century Ballerina, Jane Pritchard with Caroline Hamilton, Published by Booth-Clibborn Editions

____________________________________

by Emily Kate Long

Originally published in 2012 to mark the centenary of Pavlova’s move to Ivy House in London, Anna Pavlova Twentieth Century Ballerina* was expanded and revised in 2013. The latest edition is a beautifully arranged coffee-table book with over 150 images of Pavlova in performance and offstage.

Screen shot 2014-06-16 at 12.16.19 PMThe book focuses mostly on Pavlova’s career outside Russia. As a career history, the book is exhaustive in detail, with chapters covering Pavlova’s arrival in Europe, her acquisition of Ivy House, the formation of her own company, and her international tours. The final pages contain an index of Pavlova’s performances in Britain from 1910 to 1930.

Authors Jane Pritchard and Caroline Hamilton emphasize Pavlova’s role as a pioneer of dance in Britain and abroad in a way that was complementary to but very different from the role of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The latter presented impactful, avant-garde, cross-disciplinary performances. Pavlova’s influence, the authors argue, was hard-won and widespread and reached straight into the hearts of her audiences the world over. By venturing to cities and venues where ballet had never been seen, and by assembling shorter, divertissement-centered or variety programs, Pavlova the businesswoman made classical dance accessible to the public. By making herself and her dances accessible, she became an enduring cultural icon.

Anna Pavlova Twentieth Century Ballerina does not read like a biography. There’s only a brief paragraph on the inside jacket to introduce the text. It’s the images that speak most. Posed and candid offstage shots of Pavlova capture her elegance and mystery. Performance photographs give the reader glimpses of the Pavlova ballet-goers fell in love with. Programs, posters, and advertisements illustrate her star power.

Jane Pritchard is the curator of dance for London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Together she and freelance costume historian Caroline Hamilton paint a thorough picture of Pavlova’s career and legacy as a legendary artist and an incomparable, inimitable woman of the world.

*Royalties from the sale of the book will go towards the student scholarship program at The Royal Ballet School in London.

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: anna pavlova, anna pavlova twentieth century ballerina, book review, dance book, jane pritchard, pavlova

Brooklyn Ballet: Revolutionaries and Romantics

April 13, 2012 by 4dancers

Brooklyn Ballet’s 2012 season, “Revolutionaries and Romantics” is currently underway, and it includes a performance at the Kumble Theater today, Friday, April 13th. We corresponded with Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson about live music, different dance styles and more. Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek…

Photo by Julie Lemberger

The project started with a conversation with Kumble Theater Director, Rodney Hurley. He wondered what kind of program Brooklyn Ballet would create to illuminate major influences in classical ballet at the turn of the century ca.1890-1920. My first thought was Isadora Duncan and the Russian ballet. Research suggests that Isadora had a profound influence on classical ballet. Michel Fokine, Anna Pavlova, Sergei Diaghilev were all mad about her performances. I was curious about the structural and artistic ideas of both Duncan and Fokine and sought to interweave Duncan’s Chopin Waltzes and Fokine’s Les Sylphides. I found wonderful similarities and harmonious contrasts, a dance of great ghosts. She is the Revolutionary, he is the Romantic. Her courage gave life to his romantic ideas heretofore suppressed by the constraints of the Russian Imperial Theater. There are other tie-ins to the theme. Isadora’s own work plums the depths of love and her Chopin Dances are all about romantic love. Isadora’s powerful Revolutionary Etude, one of her last works, expresses like no other work the spirit of Revolution.

Photo by Julie Lemberger

I like the way different dance styles connect with each other even though they are seemingly quite different. I like to find connections, then expand on them as opposed to fusing two styles. For example, when I add three African-based modern dancers to The Marzipan Dance from The Nutcracker, the dancers remain in separate opposing diagonals, the choreography of the ballet dancers, spiky, light and vertical, the choreography of the modern dancers low-slung, lateral, weighted. They dance in unison nonetheless, a rhythmically-related flirt fest!

I’ve also been working with pop and lock dancers since 2005, collaborating primarily with Michael “Mike Supreme” Fields. In this season our departure point was Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne.” What is so interesting is how the “pop and lock” dancers respond to the Stravinsky in such a directly personal way. The ballet dancers, on the other hand, have step material through which the music is interpreted more abstractly. Still, when performed all together the dancers are characters on the stage, relating to each other in their given forms. The ballet dancers are at times improvising and the “pop and lock” dancers are choreographing. Both sets of dancers are exploring new territories.

Photo by Julie Lemberger

A whole world, of human interaction, of sound coming from human hands on acoustic instruments. The musicians–violinist Gil Morgenstern, director of The Reflection Series, and pianist Julius Abrahams–are world class. Their music soars and gives the dancers such a ground to dance on and an energy that changes from minute to minute, is slightly unpredictable, that forces the dancers to interact.

What is next for Brooklyn Ballet?

Next season I’d like to create a work that uses digital technology to map out floor patterns of the dancers in real time. I want to reveal the conscious use of space that I and all choreographers use as we create. Choreographers don’t take space for granted. I want to let the audience in on this. Music choices will include Harpsichord works by Louis and Francois Couperin. It is also Brooklyn Ballet’s 10th year anniversary so we’ll be celebrating our education and outreach programs as well.

BIO: Lynn Parkerson, Founding Artistic Director of Brooklyn Ballet, began ballet studies as a child with Barbara Bounds in Chapel Hill, NC. She later danced with the Boston and Chicago Ballets, performing many Nutcrackers and Balanchine ballets. In New York City, she was a trainee at the Harkness House for Ballet Arts and on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham School, where she studied technique and learned repertory. In addition, she trained in the Limón Technique with Libby Nye and ballet with the Corvinos. From 1986 to 1996, she performed the repertory of Isadora Duncan as interpreted by Hortense Koulouris and Julia Levien.

Ms. Parkerson began to choreograph while living in Munich, Germany, dancing with Birgitta Trommler’s TanzProject Munchen. Her work has been presented at many promi- nent international events and venues, including the Munich Theater Festival, Frankfurt’s Theatre am Turm, the Florence International Festival of Dance, Moers New Jazz Festival, Jazz Festival Baden-Baden and An Appalachian Summer Arts Festival in Boone, NC, among others. In New York City, she presented annual dance programs—notably the popular ballet series To the Pointe—as Director of Dance at Holy Trin- ity from 1991-2001. Her work has been supported by grants from the Harkness Foundation for Dance, Joyce Mertz-Gilm- ore Foundation and Con Edison. She was on the faculty at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center from 1989-1996 and then served as its Assistant Director from 1996-1999. Ms. Parkerson has taught dance, improvisation, and choreogra- phy to children and adults in New York and abroad.

In recognition of her exceptional leadership contributions to Brooklyn’s cultural community, Ms. Parkerson received the Betty Smith Arts Award as part of the Women’s “Her- story” Induction Ceremony and Reception in 2007. Each year, the awards, named after some of the most outstand- ing women in Brooklyn “herstory,” are presented to six Brooklyn women. In 2006 she received the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence and Community Service.

 

Filed Under: 4dancers, Organizations Tagged With: anna pavlova, brooklyn ballet, classical ballet, fokine, isadora duncan, kumble theater, les sylphides, lynn parkerson, serge diaghilev

Classical Roots: Embracing Qualitative Movement Within Classical Form

October 21, 2011 by Kimberly Peterson

Ballet has always been my first dance love. Ever since I first saw a class while waiting for my tap class to begin, I was hooked. I loved the shapes, the grace, and the expressive elegance of its structure.

In early ballet of the twentieth century, the form was drastically different than the precision and technicality of what “classical” ballet is today. Never have I seen such stark differences between these two approaches as with the performance of Fokine’s “The Dying Swan”.

Anna Pavlova, the mistress of the bourree, one of the premier dancers of her time, was legendary for her expressive and emotive performances. Her epic role in “The Dying Swan” was said to have captured the very essence of the struggle for life.

In it’s modern interpretation, it is often used as a malleable piece designed to showcase each dancer at their best. The bourree’s in Fokine’s version were specifically for Pavlova – and to answer some critics who claimed he was only doing dances flat-footed. However, I can’t help but wonder if the difference between these versions has to do with these two divergent schools of thought with regards to the quality of movement and how this shapes performance.

Watch first Pavlova’s interpretation….

Fokine describes the work’s ambition: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: anna pavlova, Ballet, dying swan, fokine, pavlova, uliana lopatkina

Dance & Poetry

April 5, 2010 by 4dancers

If you are into dance–and into poetry–this book is for you. An anthology of poems on dance, this book has noted authors such as Carl Sandburg, Lord Byron, Ezra Pound and Anne Sexton.

Famous dancers that are talked about in the poems include Gene Kelly, Anna Pavlova and Isadora Duncan, among others. There are 86 poems in all.

This book would make a great gift for a dance lover, or a nice addition to your own library of dance books.

You can find it at Dance Horizons for $18.95

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Filed Under: 4dancers, 4teachers, Books & Magazines, Dance Gifts, FOR SALE Tagged With: anna pavlova, anne sexton, book, carl sandburg, dance, dance horizons, ezra pound, gene kelly, isadora duncan, lord byron, poetry

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