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Margaret Fuhrer's Book List Charles M. Joseph, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention (2002) Joseph is a music scholar who beautifully describes the choreographer George Balanchine's longtime collaboration with composer Igor Stravinsky. His close analysis of Stravinsky's scores and Balanchine's reactions to them provide a particularly illuminating angle on the choreographic process. MORE: New York Times book review by Elizabeth Kendall New York Times “Books of the Times” review by James R. Oestreich Culture Kiosque book review by Joel Kasow Amazon Kristin Sloan (creator), thewinger.com (blog) (2005) thewinger.com is a group dance blog begun by former New York City Ballet dancer Kristin Sloan. Sloan has brought together a hugely impressive group of dancers, critics, and choreographers (including New York Times critic Gia Kourlas, former New York City Ballet principal dancer Kyra Nichols, and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon) who comment on everything from inter-company dynamics to the dance-technology overlap to dance history issues, and post exclusive backstage and rehearsal photos. The blog is generally ballet-focused (although Martha Graham Dance Company dancer Miki Orihara is also on the roster) and is updated several times a day. MORE: The blog Apple iPhone add featuring Kristin Sloan discussing thewinger.com New York Observer article on Kristin Sloan and thewinger.com Anne Belle (director), Dancing for Mr. B: Six Balanchine Ballerinas (film) (1989) Released in 1989, a few years after Balanchine's death, this film profiles some of the greatest Balanchine ballerinas (although Suzanne Farrell is notably absent): Mary-Ellen Moylan, Maria Tallchief, Melissa Hayden, Allegra Kent, Merrill Ashley and Darci Kistler. Highlights include beautiful old footage of Balanchine teaching class, and new footage showing the featured dancers setting Balanchine works on ballet students. MORE: New York Times review by Caryn James Dance Magazine profile of director Anne Belle Amazon Arlene Croce, Sight Lines (1987) Sight Lines is a collection of essays Croce wrote as chief dance critic for The New Yorker between 1981 and 1987. Croce is coolly opinionated (the book misses, by a few years, her infamous non-review of Bill T. Jones' Still/Here), but a deep love of dance—particularly classical ballet—permeates her writing. The compilation highlights a fruitful period in modern dance; Croce captures Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, and Merce Cunningham at artistic peaks, reviewing for the first time pieces—like Tharp's The Catherine Wheel, and Cunningham's Quartet—that have since become iconic. She also documents the New York City Ballet's struggle to redefine itself in the years immediately following Balanchine's death. MORE: New York Times “In Short” review by Moira Hodgson Commentary magazine review by Jacqueline Coleman Amazon Joan Acocella, Mark Morris (1993) Acocella, currently the dance critic for the New Yorker, is also able to bring dance alive through writing. In Mark Morris, she describes Morris' distinctly gregarious personality as lovingly as she interprets his dances—and shows that the one cannot be fully understood without knowledge of the other. MORE: New York Times book review by Margo Jefferson New York Times book review by John Rockwell Amazon Edwin Denby, Dance Writings (1986) Translating dance into words is singularly challenging, and nobody does it with more grace than Denby. In the 1940s and 50s, American choreographers were developing a style that reflected America's distinct character: easy, fluent, natural, direct. In his reviews for Modern Music and The New York Herald Tribune, Denby, in turn, developed a writing style that both conveyed the innovation of these dances and made them entirely accessible. Choreographers created democratic dances, and Denby wrote about them democratically. MORE: Recordings of Denby reading his own work, mostly poems “The Man Who Understood Balanchine,” by Edmund White for the New York Times Amazon |
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