Serenade

A Balanchine Story

Serenade
Toni Bentley
RRP:
NZ$ 60.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 48.00
Hardback
h235 x 156mm - 288pg
12 Apr 2022 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9780593316399
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
A ballerina tells the story of Serenade, George Balanchine' s iconic masterpiece, and what it was like to be one of the young women who danced it-and lived it-during his lifetime. At age seventeen, Toni Bentley was chosen by Balanchine, then in his final years, to join the New York City Ballet. From backstage and onstage, Bentley carries us through both the serendipitous history and physical intricacies and demands of Serenade- its dazzling opening, with seventeen women in a double-diamond pattern; its radical, even jazzy, use of the highly refined language that is ballet; its place in the choreographer' s own dramatic story of immigration to the United States from Soviet Russia; its profound influence on the art form internationally. Bentley takes us inside the rarefied, intense, and thrilling world Balanchine created through his lifelong devotion to celebrating and expanding female beauty and strength-a world that, inevitably, passed upon his death. An intimate elegy to grace and loss, and to the imprint of a towering artist and his transcendent creation on Bentley' s life, Serenade- A Balanchine Story is a rich narrative by a woman artist about the nature of art itself at its most fleeting, dynamic, and glorious.
"A unique document about one of the greatest ballets ever created. Propulsive and rich in substance . . . Balanchine' s image emerges powerfully, in wonderful detail . . . Personal, authentic, and revealing about what it took to be one of his dancers. A beautiful read. " -Mikhail Baryshnikov "Toni Bentley' s Serenade is in a category all its own-at once an ode to the rigor and passion necessary to create great art and a pointillist description of its making. It is also the story of the embracing yet exacting Balanchine, lending his genius to a young woman' s life. It will consume anyone interested in the generative force that comes from the devoted pursuit of a vocation; you needn' t know the difference between a tendu and an arabesque, a prima ballerina and a member of the corps, to be captured by its poetic prose and ingenious structure. This is a transporting reading experience, written with fervor and discernment, and a moving testament to the possibilities that lie within each of us. " -Daphne Merkin, author of This Close to Happy "Effervescent . . . Serenade endearingly captures Bentley' s passion for ballet . . . A heartfelt tribute to an influential choreographer and one of his crowning achievements. " -Kirkus Reviews
TONI BENTLEY danced with George Balanchine' s New York City Ballet for ten years. She is the author of five previous books and the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, as well as in periodicals including The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Playboy, The Daily Beast, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.
Status: Indent title, imported to order
ISBN-13: 9780593316399
Published: 12 Apr 2022
Published In: United States
Imprint: Random House Books
Publisher: Random House USA Inc
Format: Hardback
Height: 235mm
Width: 156mm
Pages: 288

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