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Father Owen Lee is internationally known for his intermission commentaries featured during the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. A Season of Opera: From Orpheus to Ariadne gathers together for the first time Father Lee's best broadcast and cassette commentaries, public lectures, and articles on twenty-three works for the musical stage. The essays range from the pioneering Orpheus of Monteverdi to the forward-looking Ariadne of Richard Strauss. Included...

Sir Frederick Ashton, Britain's greatest choreographer, was a major figure on the cultural landscape of the twentieth century and his influence extended far beyond the world of dance. Julie Kavanagh traces Ashton's progress with a keen and sympathetic sense of both the man and his milieu. The drama of his professional and private life - among his close associates were Constant Lambert, Benjamin Britten, W. B. Yeats, the Sitwells and Cecil Beaton - is skilfully interwoven with vivid descriptions...

Maria Fay's third and final book covers the evolution of her approach to teaching character dance to classical ballet dancers. First written some years ago, but never published until now, it includes an entertaining narrative account, together with descriptions and analysis of exercises for seven different character dance styles: Hungarian Court, Polish, Hungarian Gypsy, Russian, Romanian, Georgian, and Hungarian Peasant. Her particular system has formed the foundation of classes taught in recen...

'Mackrell's enthralling biography restores Lydia Lopokova to her rightful position centre-stage' DAILY MAIL'Superb ... Mackrell, with her insider's knowledge of ballet and theatre, lovingly recreates Lydia's many worlds' GAY & LESBIAN REVIEW'A hugely entertaining and informative study of the Ballets Russes star' SPECTATORBorn in 1891 in St Petersburg, Lydia Lopokova lived a long and remarkable life. Her vivacious personality and the sheer force of her charm propelled her to the top of Diaghilev'...

This text offers reflections on Ann Daly's critical practice; her responses to experiment in choreography and performance as well as to books, exhibitions and conferences; and her contributions to feminist and cultural theory.

In the mid 1990's Deborah Hay's work took a new turn. From her early experiments with untrained dancers, and after a decade of focusing on solo work, the choreographer began to explore new grounds of choreographic notation and transmission by working with experienced performers and choreographers. Using the Sky: a dance follows a similar path as Hay's previous books-Lamb at the Altar and My Body the Buddhist-by exploring her unrelenting quest for ways to both define and rethink her choreographi...

Part memoir, part dance history and ethnography, this critical study explores ballet's power to inspire and to embody ideas about politics, race, women's agency, and spiritual experience. The author knows that dance relates to life in powerful individual and communal ways, reflecting culture and embodying new ideas. Although ballet can appear (and sometimes is) elite and exclusionary, it also has revolutionary potential.

With a ballet career spanning well over eight decades, legendary dancer Frederic Franklin was one of the twentieth century's great ballet stars. This biography, rich with original interviews, covers his entire career from young dance student in the early 1920s to his most recent position as choreographer with Britain's Royal Ballet in November 2004. Each chapter covers a different period of Franklin's life, including the peak of his performing career as a principal dancer with the Ballet Russ...

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The sensational discovery of this work by Grazioso Cecchetti, son of the great Italian ballet master Enrico (1850-1928), is now made extremely valuable since it represents the only direct testimony of the famous Cecchetti method of classical ballet (the Italian School), until now passed down exclusively through the writings of his followers and students. Over 700 original sketches and drawings by the author himself, included in this work, make it a truly complete handbook on the most celebrated...