Dance anecdotes
Subtitle: stories from the worlds of ballet, Broadway, the ballroom, and modern dance
By: by Mindy Aloff.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York; Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
Subjects: Dance -- Anecdotes; Dancers -- Anecdotes
Genres: Anecdotes.
Description: "Mindy Aloff, a leading dance critic who has written for The Nation, The New Republic, and The New Yorker, has brought together here a marvelous book of stories by and about dancers - entertaining and informative anecdotes that capture the boundless variety and richness of dance as an art, a tradition, a profession, a pastime, an obsession, a reality, and, for the dancer, an ideal."

"Many of the stories are amusing, but some are rueful, even sad, and a few are dark. Aloff concludes the volume with an essay about how dancing has been able to record its past, sometimes over centuries, and about how the art of the dancer, apparently as ephemeral in performance as cloud patterns, turns out, when conditions are hospitable, to be much more hardy and resilient than many people suppose." "A glorious promenade of stories that stretch a far back as classical times and as far afield as Japan, India, and Java, this superb collection will be treasured by everyone who loves dance, whether young or old."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: N.B (from Author).: This is a highly incomplete example of how the  contents could be written for each category. All the categories, however, are represented here in order: Towering figures; title: Marie Taglioni; title: (Pierre Lacotte, August Bournonville, Hans Christian Andersen, Tamara Karsavina, Tamara Geva, Joseph Cornell, Marie Taglioni); title: Anna Pavlova; title: (Muriel Stuart, A.H. Franks, Diwan Chamanlall, Hubert Storitts, Alicia Markova; title: Sol Hurok, Anna Pavlova); title: Vaslav Nijinsky; title: (Cyril Beaumont, Jean Cocteau, Marie Rambert, Henry Taylor Parker, Ninette de Valois; title: Joan Acocella, Vaslav Nijinsky); title: Isadora Duncan; title: (Isadora Duncan, Erick Hawkins, Gorgon Craig, Irma Duncan, Max Eastman; title: Robert Benchley, Fredrika Blair, H.T. Parker, Arlene Croce); title: Martha Graham; title: (Dorothy Bird, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Francis Mason, Beate Gordon, Tony Randall, David Zellmer); title: Margot Fonteyn; title: (Alastair Macaulay, Pauline Koner, Maxim Gershunoff, Martha Graham, David Vaughan, Lynn Seymour, Valda Setterfield, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Robert A. Gottlieb; title: Keith Money, Meredith Daneman, Joy Williams Brown); title: Frederick Ashton; title: (Frederick Ashton with Dick Cavett); title: George Balanchine; title: (Tamara Geva, Mikhail Mikhailov, Lincoln Kirstein, George Balanchine, Moira Shearer, Aaron Copland, Edwin Denby, Yvonne Mounsey, Vera Krasovskaya, Bernard Taper, Robert A. Gottlieb, Maya Plisetskaya, Karin von Aroldingen, Susan Pilarre); title: Of steps and their authorship; title: (Ekaterina Vazem on La Bayadre, Natalia Makarova on the dying swan, David Daniel on Suzanne Farrell and Balanchine's Nutcracker, Julian Mates on the hornpipe; title: Michael Powell on Moira Shearer, Sally Banes on the origins of hip-hop); title: Music makes me; title: (Fred Astaire on George Gershwin, Eudora Welty, John Cranko, Ellen Pearlman; title: On Tibetan buddhist monks, Carl Carmer on dancing Alabama, A.P. Natarova on; title: Riccardo Drigo, Ruth St. Denis on music visualization, Josef Kschesinsky on Lev Ivanov; title: Parmenia Migel on Manuel da Falla, Charles Dickens on "La Carmagnole," Marcel Proust, Bob Dylan, Federico Garca Lorca, George Balanchine on Igor Stravinsky); title: The rehearsal room; title: (Antony Tudor, Carolyn Adams on Paul Taylor, Benjamin Bowman on Jerome Robbins, Tony Stevens on Bob Fosse, Savion Glover, Ralph Lemon, Jesse McKinley on Harvey Fierstein, Lincoln Kirstein on George Balanchine, Dave Barry [attributed]); title: Coaches and teachers; title: (Lillian B. Lawler on the Greek gods, Savion glover on the tap tradition, Jean Georges Noverre on ballet positions, A.Y. Golovachova-Panaeva on Charles Didelot; title: Lillian Moore on dancing on Montesquieu in North America, Maria Tallchief on Caroline Kennedy, Mary Fanton Roberts on Isadora Duncan, Lynn Seymour on Margot Fonteyn, George Jackson on Katherine Dunham, Charles  dickens, Mamie Dickens on her father, Timofei Alexevevich Stukolkin on Fanny Elssler, Andre Glevsky on Nicolas Legat, Gennady Albert on Alexander Pushkin, Paul Taylor on Antony Tudor, Deborah Jowitt on Bella Lewitzky, Ruth St. Denis and Doris Humphrey on one another, James Cagney on Anna Pavlova, Bill T Jones on his high school mentor, Martin Gottfried on Marilyn Monroe and Gwen Verdon; title: Robert Greskovic on Suzanne Farrell); title: Hands and things that can fill them; title: (Natalia Makarova, Rainer Maria Rilke, Xenia Narina, Shirley Temple, Paul Taylor, Bettie de Jong); title: Balletomania and other thrills; title: (A.H. Franks, Théophile Gautier, King Ludwig I, Ruthanna Boris, Lillian Moore, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Carl van Vechten); title: Inspiration; title: (Tommy Tune, George Balanchine, Federico Garcia Lorca, Donald McKayle; title: E. Louis Backman, Eudora Welty, Lynn Fauley Emery, Ruby Keeler, Ruth St. Denis, Diwan Chamanlall, Natalia Makarova, Lynn Seymour; title: Ron Cunningham, Gelsey Kirkland); title: Seductions attempted, surmised, and completed; title: (Geoffrey Gorer, Guglielmo Ebreo, Agnes de Mille, Meredith Daneman, Ernst Moritz Arndt, Giacomo Casanova); title: Critical lines; title: Turning points; title: From stage to page; title: Fauna; title: Scandals; title: Touring; title: The theaters; title: Costumes, footgear, and hair do's and don'ts; title: Make-up; title: Conductors; title: Dancing and related professions; title: Dancing and the movies; title: Injuries, maladies, misfortunes, and cures; title: On partnering and partnerships; title: A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound; title: Stagecraft.