Who needs a biography?

[dirac]

I add my woo-hoo.  Thank you for the heads-up, carterstephen. I look forward to purchasing and reading!

[BalanchineFan]

On 6/26/2009 at 7:14 PM, bart said:

Most of the formats we've been talking about -- biography, memoir, ghost-written memoir, etc. -- focus on the major figures but exclude the experiences, points of view, and contributions of those who are not so well known. If every star in the world had a biography, we would learn a lot about stars. How much, however, would we learn about the full complexity of the ballet world?

What about an oral history project focusing on less well-known participants, a kind of "history from the bottom up." An example would be a project devoted to NYCB during it's transition from City Center to Lincoln Center, or the effect on the company of Balanchine's illness and death. Similar topics could be devised for almost every major company in the world.

There are plenty of former students, corps members and behind-the-scenes people who might add tremendously to our knowledge of the period or the person, if given the chance to open up in front of a well-trained, well-prepared interviewer. The material gathered, organized, and conserved might teach us things about ballet we don't always think to ask about.

It's not a book, but, for me, the recent documentary In Balanchine's Classroom has tried to address some of these issues regarding Balanchine's teaching (in class), how it helped performers who danced for him, and how they are passing it on.  A lot of "non-star" ballet dancers are interviewed.

Has anyone read John Clifford's book, Balanchine's Apprentice: From Hollywood to New York and Back? It is IN NO WAY a biography as you describe, but a chatty, readable memoir.

[Dancingdemon]

On 2/5/2022 at 3:57 PM, BalanchineFan said:

It's not a book, but, for me, the recent documentary In Balanchine's Classroom has tried to address some of these issues regarding Balanchine's teaching (in class), how it helped performers who danced for him, and how they are passing it on.  A lot of "non-star" ballet dancers are interviewed.

Has anyone read John Clifford's book, Balanchine's Apprentice: From Hollywood to New York and Back? It is IN NO WAY a biography as you describe, but a chatty, readable memoir.

I just finished it and really enjoyed it! I especially liked many of his anecdotes about his time with Balanchine and also the comments Balanchine would make about various topics. It reminded me of Jacques d'Amboise's autobiography in that sense. I'm so curious who the "senior ballerina" was who visited Balanchine in the hospital and he feigned dementia so she would leave!

[miliosr]

On 2/7/2022 at 7:51 AM, Dancingdemon said:

I just finished it and really enjoyed it! I especially liked many of his anecdotes about his time with Balanchine and also the comments Balanchine would make about various topics. It reminded me of Jacques d'Amboise's autobiography in that sense.

How was the chapter about the collapse of his original Los Angeles Ballet? If you read John Clifford's Instagram feed, he's always blaming Nancy Reagan and/or the Los Angeles Times. But if you read contemporaneous accounts from the Los Angeles Times and Dance Magazine, there were very real problems in terms of funding, management and repertory (largely Balanchine and Clifford).

[BalanchineFan]

On 2/13/2022 at 8:28 PM, miliosr said:

How was the chapter about the collapse of his original Los Angeles Ballet? If you read John Clifford's Instagram feed, he's always blaming Nancy Reagan and/or the Los Angeles Times. But if you read contemporaneous accounts from the Los Angeles Times and Dance Magazine, there were very real problems in terms of funding, management and repertory (largely Balanchine and Clifford).

The problems with Los Angeles Ballet are not entirely separate. It seems there was a prominent socialite (possibly Nancy Reagan, but I think it was someone else) working against Clifford telling her wealthy friends not to fund him. That woman (whose name I can't recall) didn't like that Clifford had declined to choose her pick for ... something; a management job, a choreographic commission. The details escape me, though I read the book a few months ago.

In any case, I can see how he would present it as he did, and how a newspaper or magazine would present it in a different way.  I find his IG feed displays his healthy ego, in the book it is somewhat tempered. The only issue I had was how he writes about the Suzanne Farrell situation. He seems willfully blind, and to overestimate his understanding. He obviously has not thought through the events from her point of view (maybe no man of his generation is capable) and thinks that because he was there, or nearby, physically on the day she gave her ultimatum and left, that he has "valuable" insight. He doesn't. His views serve as a counterpoint to what's useful, and proof of the need for further education.

[dirac]

Quote

The only issue I had was how he writes about the Suzanne Farrell situation. He seems willfully blind, and to overestimate his understanding. He obviously has not thought through the events from her point of view (maybe no man of his generation is capable) and thinks that because he was there, or nearby, physically on the day she gave her ultimatum and left, that he has "valuable" insight. He doesn't. His views serve as a counterpoint to what's useful, and proof of the need for further education.

Agreed. It would have been fair for him to write, "This is what I saw and heard that day," but it's plain even from his own account that he does not have the whole story, or isn't interested, and doesn't understand the ghastly position in which Balanchine (and Mejia, in telling his wife he couldn't take it anymore and was going to leave) placed her. 

[miliosr]

12 hours ago, BalanchineFan said:

It seems there was a prominent socialite (possibly Nancy Reagan, but I think it was someone else) working against Clifford telling her wealthy friends not to fund him.

I thought there was major problem with Dorothy Chandler, who was key player and fundraiser in the Los Angeles arts scene and who didn't want John Clifford's Los Angeles Ballet to become a resident company at the Los Angeles Music Center. I also think Chandler could have cared less about George Balanchine and his ambitions for southern California.

I follow Clifford on Instagram so I'll report back if he mentions this topic again. I'm sure he will as he endlessly recycles the same stories!

[Ashton Fan]

Here are a few  suggestions of people who  both need  and deserve biographies Rambert, de Valois, John Crankp and Peter Darrell.

  I will begin with Marie Rambert. Her autobiography Quicksilver is well worth reading but I think that someone who began with a hearty dislike of classical ballet; admired Duncan so much that she gave her own Duncan inspired dance recitals; studied Dalcroze euhrythmics and found herself working with Nijinsky on Sacre would be an obvious candidate for a biography. But that was only the beginning  of the story. After the Great War Rambert settled in London where she taught euhrythmics and classical dance using the Cecchetti method. Among her pupils were both Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor. Among those whose choreographic skills she discovered and developed were not just Ashton and Tudor but Walter Gore, Frank Staff and Andre Howard all of whom danced with Rambert's company in its early days..Later generations of dancers turned choreographers included Norman Morrice and Christopher Bruce. Rambert as the company is now known dates its foundation to 1926 when Rambert and her dancers appeared at the Lyric Hammersmith in the first dance work devised by Ashton called A Tragedy of Fashion,

Then there is Ninette de Valois an Anglo Irish woman whose family were part of the Ascendancy class with three contradictory autobiographies to her credit.As it is only nine years until we celebrate the centenary of the company she established it is quite possible that there is someone hard at work researching the subject at this moment. While the life of the founder of a major national institution ought to be of interest the life of someone which spans an entire century and brings that individual into contact with everyone who was anyone in the world of dance in the west during that lifetime should make the subject even more attractive to a would be author.But then there is the family story which on the Irish side of her family covers a not so young lady;s voyage to India as part of the "fishing fleet"in search of a husband; that lady's marriage to a second son who comes into property as the result of a fortuitous death which brought her husband an estate in Ireland; a great grand mother, I think, who wrote a definitive account of the Potato Famine in Wicklow; a will and dispute over property you might find improbable if you encountered it in a nineteenth century novel; some sort of financial crisis which forced the family to sell up and move to London. A father who dies of wounds in 1915 and is awarded a posthumous MC and a mother who was involved in the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland and was at one point accepted as a leading expert on Irish antique glass. There must be someone who would find that subject tempting.

As far as my other potential subjects are concerned while there is the biography of John Cranko written by John Percival which was published in 1983 I can't help thinking that after forty years perhaps it is time for a new assessment of the man,his works. and his lasting influence on dance. There is still time to capture the views of those who were in the studio with him at Stuttgart and on whom he made his ballets. As far as Peter Darrell is concerned he belonged to the same generation of dance makers as Crankp and MacMillan. He is of significance both as a choreographer and as the man who established Scottish Ballet. I recall enjoying his creations and his repertory choices. He was able to give his new company the distinct identity it needed because he had a ballerina in his company who was particularly suited to romantic style ballets as a result among other works they had a lovely staging of Bournonville's Napoli.

Other possible subjects include Walter Gore, Frank Staff and Andre Howard about whom I know far too little. And then there is Karsavina although her own memoir Theatre Street is wonderful and the book Diaghilev's Ballerina is of great value. Karsavina really  does deserve a full biography.

 

[Rock]

What about Petipa? Is there a good biography about him out there? I feel I know so little about his life. French. Brother. Daughter was a dancer. That's about it. Was he fired from the theatre? Why? I'd love to know more.

 

[canbelto]

35 minutes ago, Rock said:

What about Petipa? Is there a good biography about him out there? I feel I know so little about his life. French. Brother. Daughter was a dancer. That's about it. Was he fired from the theatre? Why? I'd love to know more.

 

Nadine Meisner's biography is great, very comprehensive:

https://www.amazon.com/Marius-Petipa-Emperors-Ballet-Master-ebook/dp/B07QRWZXXF/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2URY23RNZTP69&keywords=petipa+biography&qid=1656648121&sprefix=petipa+biography%2Caps%2C76&sr=8-3

[Rock]

Thank you so much Canbelto. How did this slip past me? Just ordered from Amazon. Very grateful to you.