Ballet’s Magic Kingdom: Selected Writings on Dance in Russia, 1911-1925 by Akim Volynsky, edited and translated by Stanley J. Rabinowitz.
Now that the surfeit of Nutcrackers has passed into, presumably, happy memories, it’s time to settle down with a good book about dance. A book may also be the perfect last-week gift for the dance-lover on your list. Here are some recommendations that may likely fit the bill and will reward the recipient far into the new year.
Ballet’s Magic Kingdom: Selected Writings on Dance in Russia, 1911-1925 by Akim Volynsky, edited and translated by Stanley J. Rabinowitz. 288 pages. Yale University Press, $35.
No more important dance book has come from the publishing industry in 2008. Akim Volynsky (1861-1926) was a cranky, iconoclastic yet seminal Russian critic and dance theorist whose writings have remained untranslated until Rabinowitz’s heroic effort. This volume includes 40 of Volynsky’s more controversial essays, as well as The Book of Exaltations, a 130-page primer and reflection on the ABCs of classical dance, which bears reading and discussing today.
Volynsky witnessed what he felt was the moribund tradition that followed the death of the Mariinsky Theatre’s iconic ballet master, Marius Petipa; the arrival of Michel Fokine and the rise and emigration of George Balanchine. This volume abounds in theatrical encounters with dance legends, including Karsavina, Nijinsky, Pavlova, Preobrazhenskaya and Isadora Duncan. We would wait until the advent of Edwin Denby for such concise, vivid descriptions of dancers in motion.
Where Volynsky seems prophetic is in his belief that the glory of dance resides in the bodies of dancers, rather than in the theatrical trappings that surround them. But Volynsky was also preternaturally aware of the qualities that made great dance music; he extolled Tchaikovsky and heaped contempt on mediocrities like Minkus and Pugni. He’s also not crazy about the fate of dance after the Soviet revolution.
You will find contradictions aplenty here, but they derive from an exceptional mind and inflammatory sensibility, and Volynsky is irreplaceable in capturing an era of tumult and regeneration in ballet. Not always easy reading, but constantly fresh and stimulating.
Balanchine Variations by Nancy Goldner. 144 pages. University Press of Florida; $24.95 (paper).
Poring through Goldner’s essays on 22 of George Balanchine’s works is pure pleasure, whether for ballet veterans or newcomers to the scene, who may still wonder, “Who is this Balanchine guy, and why is he so important?”
The book was inspired by a series of lectures given around the country over the past few years by Goldner, who, during her career has served as dance critic for The Christian Science Monitor and other distinguished publications. Goldner discusses the ballets in chronological order, taking us from the 1928 Apollo to the 1978 Ballo della Regina, a 50-year span virtually unmatched in the history of dance.
Goldner ranges over the creative circumstances surrounding these ballets, treats their performance histories, discusses the particular flavor and texture of each piece and places them in the context of Balanchine’s personal life and overall career. Apt photographs spice the text. All but three of the works under discussion were made for New York City Ballet, or its predecessor organizations; but since many of these works have entered the repertoires of ballet companies around the country (to the best of my knowledge, San Francisco Ballet has performed 18 of the 22 at some point in its 75-year history), Goldner’s slim but fertile volume can and should be consulted before attending a performance.
Goldner was careful only to include ballets in wide circulation, so you won’t find an essay on, say, Union Jack, which is strictly New York City Ballet fare. But I was a bit disconcerted to discover that, among the missing, was Symphony in C, one of Balanchine’s more enduring and life-restoring masterpieces. Maybe, Goldner should think about a Volume 2.
Fred Astaire by Joseph Epstein. 224 pages. Yale University Press; $22.
Balanchine called Astaire America’s greatest dancer, and even reading about him fills one with inexpressible joy. But Epstein, who is not, according to his bio, much of a dance expert, seems to write around his subject, a notoriously diffident individual. Epstein covers the main events and devotes space to Astaire’s partners throughout his long career.
But there’s too much space consumed by rehashes of other writers’ interviews with the dancer and too much of an obsession with comparing Astaire with his Hollywood hoofer colleague, Gene Kelly. Epstein also reveals a weird fascination with Astaire’s younger partners and the psychosexual implications of his working relationships with much younger women.
This is all eminently readable, but, alas, Epstein fails to describe with any telling detail, how Astaire looked when he moved. And therein lay the substance of his artistry. So, search used bookstores for a copy of Astaire’s autobiography, Steps in Time, or Arlene Croce’s landmark Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book. Better still, if you shop around on the internet, for considerably less than a $100, you can buy all the Astaire-Rogers movie collaborations in a single DVD box. It’s bliss just to think about.
Chance and Circumstances, Twenty Years with Cage and Cunningham by Carolyn Brown. 646 pages. Knopf; $37.50.
Yes, I know this was published in 2007, but considering that it has not yet appeared in paperback and that the shelf life for dance books is notoriously brief, it should be grabbed up whenever you find a copy. Brown danced gloriously with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from the 1950s through the 1970s, and she was, apparently, either keeping copious notes or was blessed with phenomenal powers of recall.
We are privy to witnessing Cunningham in the act of creation and his relationships with his collaborators. Through Brown’s memoir, we experience what it means for a dancer to spend half a lifetime on tour. Even more important, we are provided a pageant of a generation of great America avant-garde artists—including John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and the many wonderful dancers in the company’s history—from the inside. Need I mention that Brown is an extremely engaging prose stylist, that the book is meticulously annotated, or that the 40 pages of photographs are alone worth the asking price?
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