Reading Dance - A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews,

Informationen zum Autor Robert Gottlieb has been editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker . He has edited books by such dance luminaries as Margot Fonteyn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, and Lincoln Kirstein. He served for many years on the board of directors of New York City Ballet, working closely with Kirstein and Balanchine, and is the author of George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker . He has been for a decade the dance critic of the New York Observer , and writes frequently for The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. His previously anthology, Reading Jazz , was acclaimed as a unique contribution to the jazz literature, and his Reading Lyrics (edited with Robert Kimball) has become a treasured resource for lovers of American popular song. Klappentext An essential collection of writings on dance gathered and annotated by the author of "Reading Jazz!" this book is a must-have for any dance lover and a celebration of dance's history! innovation! diversity! and beauty. Leseprobe Notes on Choreography FREDERICK ASHTON With every new ballet that I produce I seek to empty myself of some plastic obsession and every ballet I do is, for me, the solving of a balletic problem. But let me begin by explaining what I understand the function of the choreographer to be. First of all, he is to the ballet what a playwright is to a play; but whereas the playwright writes his play and generally hands it on to a producer who animates it for him and puts it on the stage, a choreographer does all this himself. Usually he is his own librettist also, so that in a sense the whole fount of the creation comes from him. When I was younger I created ballets freely, spontaneously and without much thought; the steps just flowed out of me and if they had any shape or form at all, generally it was because the music already had it, and not because I had consciously placed it there. Also, as befits the young, I wanted very much to please my audience and I thought it of great importance that I should entertain, amuse and charm them. Now I don't think that way. Up to a point I don't care what the audience thinks, I work purely and selfishly for myself and only do ballets which please me and which I feel will both develop me as an artist and extend the idiom of the dance. There are many different sources from which a ballet may spring to life. One can be affected by the paintings of a great master and wish to animate them; one may read a story which calls to be brought to life in movement; or one can hear a piece of music which somehow dances itself. And one can have strange ideas of one's own, or a theme may be suggested by some outside influence. In the course of my career I have responded to all these different forms of impetus. As I said, one can be moved by the paintings of a great master and wish to animate them. This I have done in two or three of my own ballets, such as my very first which was Leda and the Swan. In this I was stirred by the paintings of Botticelli; I copied the postures and generally created, I think, the fresh springlike by morning of the world atmosphere of his paintings. I think this is a very good way for young choreographers to begin. Now that I am older I rather despise this form of creation, but it is certainly an absorbing way of working, for it necessitates the study of a whole period of painting and of manners, and this gives plastic richness and diversity to the pattern of the dance. In my ballet The Wise and Foolish Virgins , which was arranged to the music of Bach, I went to eighteenth-century baroque but whereas previously in Leda and the Swan I had studied the paintings, in this ballet I not only studied baroque painting in general but also sculpture and architecture, and I tried to convey, with the bodies of ...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Robert Gottlieb
• Con la collaborazione di: Robert Gottlieb (Editore)
• Editore: Pantheon Schocken Books
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 04.11.2008
• EAN: 9780375421228
• ISBN: 978-0-375-42122-8
• Pagine: 1360
• Dimensioni: 161 mm x 242 mm x 68 mm
• Categoria: Scienze umane, arte, musica > Arte > Teatro, balletto