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Balanchine & the Lost Muse: Revolution & the Making of a Choreographer
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About Balanchine & The Lost Muse: Revolution & The Making
Product Description Here is the first dual biography of the early lives of two key figures in Russian ballet: famed choreographer George Balanchine and his close childhood friend and extraordinary ballerina Liidia (Lidochka) Ivanova. Tracing the lives and friendship of these two dancers from years just before the 1917 Russian Revolution to Balanchine's escape from Russia in 1924, Elizabeth Kendall's Balanchine & the Lost Muse sheds new light on a crucial flash point in the history of ballet. Drawing upon extensive archival research, Kendall weaves a fascinating tale about this decisive period in the life of the man who would become the most influential choreographer in modern ballet. Abandoned by his mother at the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet Academy in 1913 at the age of nine, Balanchine spent his formative years studying dance in Russia's tumultuous capital city. It was there, as he struggled to support himself while studying and performing, that Balanchine met Ivanova. A talented and bold dancer who grew close to the Bolshevik elite in her adolescent years, Ivanova was a source of great inspiration to Balanchine--both during their youth together, and later in his life, after her mysterious death just days before they had planned to leave Russia together in 1924. Kendall shows that although Balanchine would have a great number of muses, many of them lovers, the dark beauty of his dear friend Lidochka would inspire much of his work for years to come. Part biography and part cultural history, Balanchine & the Lost Muse presents a sweeping account of the heyday of modern ballet and the culture behind the unmoored ideals, futuristic visions, and human decadence that characterized the Russian Revolution. Amazon.com Review Interesting Facts relating to Balanchine & Lost Muse 1. Balanchine had a father from Georgia, in the southern Caucasus, who during his childhood played him traditional Georgian music. That music features what musicologists consider the oldest polyphonic tradition in the world, and very complicated rhythms - all of which probably meant that Balanchine had been prepared in his childhood to handle the complicated rhythms and melodies of American jazz. 2. Balanchine’s first birthday fell (according to the old Russian pre-revolutionary calendar) on “Bloody Sunday” – January 9th, 1905 – the start of the first Russian revolution of 1905. 3. The Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (formerly the Imperial Theater School) used to have only 3 high-ceilinged floors and a simple layout; now it has 5 floors and a very complicated layout (you can easily get lost in it). 4. Matilda Kshesinskaya, mistress to the last tsar, Nicholas II, was ruthless as a person, but beguiling onstage as a ballerina. 5. Ballerina Olga Preobrazhenskaya was more important to the formation of what’s called the Vaganova method of training ballet dancers than is generally known – and important, too, to George Balanchine’s beliefs about ballet training. 6. From 1905 on, Isadora Duncan’s “natural” barefoot dancing had a tremendous effect on Russia’s ballet world, and also on the dynamic world of Russian theater. 7. George Balanchine almost emigrated – twice – to Georgia, from Russia, after the revolution. If he’d emigrated to Georgia, he might not have come to America, and ballet history would have been very different. 8. George Balanchine’s first works were several pas de deux done in the modern fashion, with a hint of sex in the dancing. 9. Balanchine’s first group dance, Marche Funebre, was performed in June, 1923, to an audience of soldiers and sailors. 10. Balanchine’s classmate Lidia Ivanova developed a new kind of ballet dancing that seemed spontaneous and “in the moment,” and made audiences almost mad with joy. Review "[T]he larger portrait she paints, of two curious, forward-looking artists forged in the same fires, is worth spending some time with." -- New York Times "As a meditation on history and art, Balanchine & the
