New book about Royal Danish Ballet

[kbarber]

Erik Aschengreen's brand new book, Dancing Across the Atlantic, USA - Denmark 1900-2014, tells the rich history of the Royal Danish Ballet at home and in the U.S. The book contains hundreds of beautiful and sometimes rarely-seen photos of the company's early and current dancers, and ballets performed at home and on tour. - Dance Magazine is having a giveaway of two copies (in the USA only, apparently): See more at: http://dancemagazine.com/contest/show/515#sthash.JqXKVoVu.dpuf

[sandik]

Thanks so much for the heads-up -- I'll look for this at my bookstore.

[Anne]

If the book cannot be found in an ordinary bookstore, I know the webshop of the RDB does overseas orders: Link

The book is beautifully made, as pointed out by kbarber. I was especially fond of the documentation of the RDB's frequent presence at Jacob's Pillow.

The book has been made on the initiative of Nikolaj Hübbe, who himself is an example of the Danish-American cultural exchange.

If one should criticize the book for something it would be, that Aschengreen has chosen to paint the picture in too rosy colours. No mentioning for example of the difficulties of making Bournonville's ballet with their 3/4 mime and 1/4 dance accessible to an American audience, who has grown up with Balanchine's abstract ballets, modern dance and the bravura dance of ballet classics like Don Quixote. Furthermore one could have wished for more informations (of which I'm absolutely sure Aschengreen is capable, as his knowledge in this field is almost borderless): You get the feeling that the author has restrained himself and tried not to make the book too heavy on informations. This sometimes make the balance between pictures and text tilt (many nearly empty pages with only a picture and a short comment).

But the book is certainly worth having. The angle is new, and you find informations in it, which, to my knowledge, hasn't been published before.

[sandik]

Thanks for the link -- this had slipped my mind, and when I looked at the usual places to order a copy I came up empty (although I did find other tempting stuff -- too many books and not enough bookshelves...)