Dancers Memoir

This is Holland's Got Talent juror Dan Karaty's devastating, moving, and painfully honest account of his life before, during, and after rehab. Choreographer Dan Karaty is living the life: he is traveling around the world partying, garnering attention, and making money. When he joins the jury of So You Think You Can Dance and Holland's Got Talent the Dutch audience falls for the charms of this smiling American. But behind his smile, Dan is hiding a big secret. He's an alcoholic. The more successful Dan becomes, the more he drinks.

This book is about the personal odyssey of becoming a dancer, teacher, and educator. With a few biographical elements, it represents a lifelong reflection of transformations from the innate gift to the fulfillment as an artist with the focus on self-education. As an artist, I take on a cosmopolitan approach to art by dissolving stigmas, national identities, borders, and walls from my experiences of the Soviet Union in the Cold War Era, through Canadian immigration, Danish society, and finally the American emergence, all through the eyes of a ballet teacher and artist.

In the pantheon of American modernists, few figures loom larger than Martha Graham. One of the greatest choreographers ever to live, Graham pioneered a revolutionary dance technique—primal, dynamic, and rooted in the emotional life of the body—that upended traditional vocabulary and shaped generations of dancers and choreographers across the globe. Over her sweeping career, she founded what is now the oldest dance company in the country and produced nearly two hundred ballets, many of them masterpieces.

Сергей Лифарь, прославленный танцовщик, балетмейстер, премьер Парижской Оперы, много лет возглавлявший балетную труппу "Гранд-Опера", ближайший друг легендарного основателя Русского балета Сергея Дягилева, написал две книги воспоминаний о нем. Впервые книга Сержа Лифаря о Дягилеве была издана в Париже в 1939 году на русском языке в количестве 615 экземпляров, и сразу стала библиографической редкостью.

Through her experiences in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Marianne Preger-Simon offers a rare account of exactly how Cunningham taught and interacted with his students. She describes the puzzled reactions of audiences to the novel non-narrative choreography of the company’s debut performances. She touches on Cunningham’s quicksilver temperament, lamenting his early frustrations with obscurity and the discomfort she suspects he endured in concealing his homosexuality and partnership with composer John Cageyet she celebrates above all his dependable charm, kindness, and engagement.

For more than five decades, Twyla Tharp has been a phenomenon in American dance, a choreographer who not only broke the rules but refused to repeat her own successes. Tharp has made movies, television specials, and nearly one hundred riveting dance works. Her dance show Movin’ Out ran on Broadway for three years and won Tharp a Tony award for Best Choreography.

In 2019, Johannes Radebe became the first male dancer to perform in heels in Strictly Come Dancing history. Wearing black patent leather boots, Johannes danced with a red 'Pose' fan to a rendition of Blondie's Rapture. Two years on, Johannes was part of only the second same-sex pair on the show, dancing with Great British Bake-Off winner, John Whaite and though they were runners up and the response from the UK public was overwhelmingly positive, Johannes still faced abuse that highlighted the continuing fight against homophobia and racism.

After twenty years of shiny floors, sambas, and sequins, we’re more captivated than ever by the ‘Strictly Journey’ – a contestant’s inspirational roller-coaster ride of personal growth as they learn each new routine. It’s a process that requires stamina, resilience, and an openness to total self-expression - and it teaches you as much about yourself as it does the dance. No one knows this journey more deeply than Strictly’s Head Judge, Shirley Ballas. In Best Foot Forward, she takes you on her own personal journey, sharing the tools she’s developed to live life to the fullest.

Norman Mathews was born in the wrong town, the wrong era, and with the wrong name. What’s a boy to do? He conjured up a more enticing, imaginary world to better navigate the perils of childhood. Dreams of a life in the theater and of passionate romance were stymied by lack of self-assurance.

When World War II was over, a young bomber pilot with an itch for movement and action hung up his cap and learned another way to fly. Onstage with Martha Graham is the story of Stuart Hodes, a versatile and influential dancer who got his start with Martha Graham, an icon of modern dance. His memoir is a rare firsthand view of the dance world in the 1940s and through the end of the twentieth century. One of the few male dancers in Graham’s company—and in the New York dance scene at the time—Hodes offers a unique perspective and a one-of-a-kind narrative.

羽生結弦は、いかにして唯一無二の存在となったのか。膨大な取材メモから紐解く、絶対王者の素顔――。

Balletdanser, skoleleder, førstedame, underviser, koreograf og instruktør. Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter er dedikeret til balletten. Hun har været tilknyttet Det Kongelige Teater i 66 år, og hun arbejder stadig. Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter fortæller i erindringsbogen På skrå brædder og bonede gulve til journalist Trine Munk-Petersen om sin opvækst i en teaterfamilie, om skiftende balletmestre, verdenskendte dansere, turneer, det daglige arbejde bag kulisserne og ikke mindst om Danmarks store koreograf, som hun gør alt for at holde levende: August Bournonville.

The Radio City Rockettes are as American as baseball, hot dogs, and the Fourth of July. Their legendary synchronized leg kicks, precise lines, and megawatt smiles have charmed audiences for a century. But there is a hidden side to this illustrious national institution. Like Gelsey Kirkland’s iconic Dancing on My Grave, Becoming Spectacular allows us to walk in Jones’ tap shoes—beautiful and glittering, yet painful and binding. Bringing into focus the wounded life of a trailblazer, this searing memoir is also a triumphant celebration of a spirit who refused to be counted out.

Why we matter. Von Kindesbeinen an zieht es Ana Milva Gomes auf die Bühne. Mit außergewöhnlichem Talent, viel harter Arbeit und unbändigem Willen erkämpft sich die Tochter kapverdischer Immigranten erfolgreich Musical-Hauptrollen in »Mamma Mia!«, »Sister Act« oder »Cats«. Doch abseits des Scheinwerferlichts stößt die sympathische Künstlerin immer wieder an die Grenzen einer monochromen Gesellschaft.

Eileen Kramer has lived the most extraordinary life. Born just after Australia entered World War I, she embraced creativity and adventure from an early age. She danced and painted murals in Karachi; worked as an artist's model in Paris and London; met Ella Fitzgerald and Groucho Marx; and learned the twist from Louis Armstrong. In September 2013, aged ninety-nine, Eileen returned to Australia. Now, at 108, she is still dancing.

When the Nicholas Brothers danced, uptown at the Cotton Club, downtown at the Roxy, in segregated movie theatres in the South, and dance halls across the country, audiences cheered, clapped, stomped their feet, and shouted out uncontrollably. In Brotherhood in Rhythm, Constance Valis Hill interweaves an intimate portrait of these great performers with a rich, detailed history of jazz music and dance, both bringing their act to life and explaining their significance through a colorful analysis of their eloquent footwork, their full-bodied expressiveness, and their changing style.

An irresistible inside look at one of the world’s great dance companies, Winter Season is also a sensitive, intimate, and almost painfully honest account of the emotional and intellectual development of a young woman dedicated to one of the most demanding of all the arts.

Marie Empress was an English singer, dancer, male impersonator, and comedienne who performed in vaudeville and theater around the world at the turn of the 20th century. She achieved her greatest success as an actress in early American motion pictures, circa 1910-1917, and was known as "the sublime vampire woman." She was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, and for a short period, her star was very bright. But her life, like her sudden appearance on the world stage in 1910, and her disappearance less than a decade later, is cloaked in mystery.

This is the true story of a young dancer, whose naïve dream of working in the Far East turns into a nightmare. She finds herself in a plethora of situations, which she is ill-equipped to deal with. Dancing her way across South Korea with two friends, she is propositioned by the Mafia, turned away by the British Embassy, caught in a student riot, and taken to Korean brothels.

Ein leidenschaftlicher Kampf um Selbstbehauptung. Als Marie von der renommierten Berliner Ballettschule angenommen wird, ist sie überglücklich; das Sportinternat gilt als Kaderschmiede für junge Talente und auch sie strebt eine tänzerische Laufbahn an. Doch der Alltag ist ganz anders als erhofft und die Lehrer gängeln ihre Schützlinge von früh bis spät, insbesondere das Gewicht ist ein brisantes Dauerthema. Marie steht den gnadenlosen Drill bis zum Abschluss durch, droht aber schließlich an dem Erlebten zu zerbrechen. Will sie das vermeiden, muss sie für sich einstehen.