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ballet novels and biographies.


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These are great recommendations...I love reading ballet biographies.  Probably not the best one but my absolute favourite is Ballerina by Monica Loughman.  She's an Irish dancer who went to the Perm ballet school in Russia then joined the company.  It is a really great read and just very inspiring and interesting.  Most of my other favourites have already been mentioned but I read the biography of NYCB's Jenifer Ringer which was pretty interesting  and ABT's Misty Copeland which was also interesting but I wasn't that keen on how it was written but that's just me.  I also read Daria Klimentova's book and although it is not one of my favourites it is still worth checking out.  A really good book also is Out of Step: A Dancer Reflects by Alida Belair although it can be quite a depressing read.  A book I've just started is The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz which is about her experiences in the NYCB and dealing with her diabetes so I think it will be quite interesting.

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I am a bit surprised that no-one has mentioned Noel Streatfeild for children's ballet and theatre stories. I reread my collection even today! My favourite is not the famous Ballet Shoes actually, but one called Dancing Shoes. My copy was called Wintle's Wonders, but they changed the name, as they did several of them, in order to add it to the "Shoe" series! Dancing Shoes is about two little girls who go and live with their aunt, Mrs. Wintle, who runs a stage school which has several dance troupes appearing in panto, which are called Wintle's Wonders! I loved White Boots too, now called Skating Shoes. Highly recommended and beautiful writing.

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Noel Streatfeild's books have never gone out of fashion for children and can be found in paperback still in book shops and on line. I just checked in the Book Depository and found copies of Ballet Shoes, Dancing Shoes and White Boots for around 5 pounds each and they deliver anywhere in the world free!

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I am always looking for ballet books in kindle editions, and one has become available recently, the autobiography of Janet Sassoon, called 'Reverence'. Very interesting, but I am now 3/4 of the way through and she is getting on my nerves, because she was obviously a bit of a daddy's princess and everything is always 'marvellous', but well worth reading otherwise.

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Hi.

Here's a list of books i've enjoyed you might like too :)

Nureyev by Kavanagh - biography of the great dancer (but what a small minded and mean person he was in real life. almost put me off...almost but not quite!)

Apollo's Angels by Jennifer Homens - fascinating history of ballet from its origins to today but a mammoth book and so still reading...

White Swan, Black Swan by Adrienne Sharp (fiction) -- award winning short stories set in the ballet world. Enjoying !

Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal by Toni Bentley- -- highly recommended. (Her follow up book called Surrender is an eye opening look at her sex life!!)

 

Margot Fonteyn by M. Daneman - a very detailed book about the famous English ballerina. Very long but enjoyable. 

 

--

 

I am just reading a novel called 84 Ribbons, which I suspect is for young adults really, but I am loving it. I am constantly looking for ballet novels and biographies, but I have have read everything I can find on Amazon,etc,and am now struggling to find anything new.

Has anyone got a favourite that they can suggest that I might not have read?

I suspect that my standards are lower when it comes to ballet books than they are for other books!

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Oh I forgot to add a biography about Frederick Ashton called I think just 'Ashton'. It was the first ballet book I read!! Is it just me or do all the choreographers fall for their prima ballerinas and use their power and influence to go to bed with their dancers?! Some of the things Ashton said about his dancers was eye-watering!!

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Oh I forgot to add a biography about Frederick Ashton called I think just 'Ashton'. It was the first ballet book I read!! Is it just me or do all the choreographers fall for their prima ballerinas and use their power and influence to go to bed with their dancers?! Some of the things Ashton said about his dancers was eye-watering!!

Then you must read 'Holding on to the Air', by Suzanne Farrell, about Ballanchine's ghastly obsession with and control over the ballerinas in his company. She seems remarkably forgiving though.

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On 29/04/2015 at 21:06, jm365 said:

And I must mention 'A Bullet In The Ballet' by Carol Brahms and ? Simon.  And, though not as good, the other books about the Ballet Stroganoff.  They are a wonderful send up of the old, endlessly touring Ballets Russes companies.

 

On 29/04/2015 at 21:16, Douglas Allen said:

I got the impression you are looking for some fiction. S.J. Simon and Caryl Brahms wrote a series of books about the troubles and travails of life in a touring Russian Ballet company. The first (and probably best) is "A Bullet In The Ballet".

 

Just to say, adding to this really good thread a couple of years later, I remember reading "Bullet In The Ballet" as a youngster with much pleasure and have now just reread it. Not sure it stands up: there are flashes of fun throughout (and of course a whole layer of accidental value if one is interested in the late 1930s, when this was written) but the jokes as such are pretty repetitious and speaking as an aficionado of "classic crime", the so-called "detective mystery" is so casually handled as to be all but irrelevant.

 

Fine for an hour or two if one is a speed reader with a taste for period marginalia but a non-fiction history of the Bolshoi would probably be more thrilling and draw more gasps and guffaws.

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25 minutes ago, Lynette H said:

Has anyone read the recent Beryl Grey autobiography For the love of dance ?  I haven't seen any reviews of it (apart from what you can see on amazon - mixed you might say). 

 

Two friends have read it (I haven't) and both report it being bland to the point of why bother. Her memoir from the 1950s of going to Russia (which I read recently) is not very exciting either but inevitably has historical value.

 

But I have a recording of Beryl Grey dancing the Lilac Fairy (no one has bettered this imho) and was there on the wonderful Insight a couple of years ago when she showed us how it should be done. So she has given me more than enough. Hope the BBC does a film on her like they did for Peter Wright. 

 

(By the way, if a grown up admin is reading this, somehow my previous posting has ended up twice, might you adjust?)

 

 

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50 minutes ago, Lynette H said:

Has anyone read the recent Beryl Grey autobiography For the love of dance ?  I haven't seen any reviews of it (apart from what you can see on amazon - mixed you might say). 

 

I'm in the middle of reading it at the moment. It's clearly based on her diaries over the years so is chronological and detailed and I'm really enjoying it. It is quite frustrating sometimes though because Dame Beryl does sometimes pass over something which must have been very interesting - e.g. a meeting to resolve a conflict - by just saying 'it went satisfactorily'. But she doesn't pretend it was all a bed of roses - far from it. There have been a few places where it could have been better edited. And it's clearly written from her point of view (obviously) so a little reading between the lines may be required. But I'm finding it very absorbing and interesting (I've got to about 1969 so far!).

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Has anybody read Gillian Lynne's book about her early career in the wartime? That was interesting. Also found a copy of Theatre Street by Karsavina in an Oxfam book shop. I love looking through old books, you never know what you might find!

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Yes Alison - I am very familiar with the area where Gillian's grandparents and aunt lived. I must say her descriptions of travelling on the train back to East Croydon after the shows, not knowing if you might be bombed, sounded very scary! How brave people were.

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11 hours ago, alison said:

And let's face it, there were a lot of railway lines around there which the German bombers could have (and did) bombed.  I believe my former home was built on a bomb-damaged site.

 

My parents lived in a road in South Norwood (one stop before East Croydon) next to the railway line.  It was a short road but totally flattened in a bombing raid.  Today there are just a couple of tower blocks where that street was.   As kids we used to play on bomb sites, great fun, and it was years before the pre war housing stock was in part replaced.

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I really enjoyed Curtain Fall by Jean Ure also - and Ballerina by Edward Stewart, which if I'm not mistaken the film 'The Turning Pointe' was based on.

I used to collect old ballet books from second hand shops, and have a nice little collection. Not all well written, but usually containing good photos of past stars. Some like Theatre Street by Karsavina I treasure. I unfortunately bought a couple by Arnold Haskell and was horrified at the racist language and opinion. I was even more horrified when I discovered that he had been connected to The Royal Ballet School and I used to wonder if that was why they didn't have any black students at the school then or in the company.. after all Haskell hadn't hid his racist opinions. So avoid them.

Anyway - my favourite autobiography is Irina by Irina Baronova, I have always loved stories of the 'baby ballerina's' so was really happy to get this, it's wonderfully written and full of beautiful photos.

On a lighter note I recommend a ballet quiz book called Balletomania by Andrew Mark Wentink, which is full of facts and great photos and is such fun to do.

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12 hours ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Alison, can you spot the location on here?  http://bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900

 

 

Spot on, by the looks of it, Ian, thanks - although I can't zoom in too far without Firefox freaking out.  It's slightly odd, because I was always told that the plot next to mine had been a post-war demolition.  Oddly enough, there's also one showing right on top of where I'm living now, yet I can't see any evidence for anywhere in my part of the road having been bombed.

 

12 hours ago, MAB said:

 

My parents lived in a road in South Norwood (one stop before East Croydon) next to the railway line.  It was a short road but totally flattened in a bombing raid.  Today there are just a couple of tower blocks where that street was.

 

I think I ought to be able to guess where that one is - ah yes, I think I've got it. I think I used to spot them from the train.

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On 16/11/2017 at 11:08, Ian Macmillan said:

Alison, can you spot the location on here?  http://bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900

 

Ian. thanks very much for posting this link.  My mother was bombed out of her home twice, once in Chelsea and again in Stockwell so it's fascinating to see the details. Luckily her family were all OK, even my grandfather who refused to leave the house because he was still eating his supper when they heard the siren!

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