We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,545,247.14 | Books Available: 800,405 | Members Online: 236

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - De Basil's Ballets Russes

De Basil's Ballets Russes
Author: Kathrine Sorley Walker

Drawn partly from the scattered remnants of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and partly from extraordinary new talent, Colonel W. de Basil's company of dancers kept alive the heritage of the Russian ballet for a period spanning virtually twenty years. De Basil's Ballets Russes, under various titles, and initially founded in association with Rene Blum,... more » director of ballet at Monte Carlo, not only preserved the greatest of the Diaghilev ballets but mounted many new ones, among them major works by Balanchine, Fokine, Massine, Nijinska and Lichine - the company's one home-grown choreographer. It provided a brilliant showcase for great dancers such as Danilova, Woizikovsky and Massine, whose reputations were already made, and for many younger dancers including the remarkable 'baby ballerinas'. De Basil launched not only the original trio - Toumanova, Baronova and Riabouchinska - but a whole succession of teenage dancers of outstanding natural ability whose superb training had made of them finished artists of the highest quality well before their eighteenth birthdays. Among many other dancers whose careers were influenced by de Basil - a White Russian Cossack officer who emigrated to Paris in 1919 and whose gifts were entrepreneurial rather than artistic - were Tchernicheva, an ex-Diaghilev dancer whom he brought out of retirement to become a leading performer again in her maturity, and Kirsova, suddenly thrust into stardom by rapturous Australian audiences. The story of the de Basil ballet is one of glamour, mystery and the obsessive dedication without which no art form can achieve excellence. Its locations are many - Europe, the USA, Central and South America and Australasia were toured by the company, which appeared not only in the great capitals but in places where classical dance had rarely if ever been seen before. Travelling through the countryside, this multi-national troupe would climb out of their coach to hold class in a wayside field, using the wire fences as barres; and no matter what conditions they had to face backstage, on stage these dancers would create magic. Kathrine Sorley Walker's researches for this eminently readable book have taken her on a tour of duty hardly less exhausting than those of the de Basil company. The result is a riveting account of these little-documented years, by one of Britain's best dance historians and critics, that fills a conspicuous gap in the literature of the ballet. Cover photograph is the design for souvenir programme from 1934 season of the de Basil Ballets Russes by Georges de Pogedaieff (reproduced by courtesy of the Theatre Museum, London).

ISBN-13: 9780689113659
ISBN-10: 068911365X
Pages: 317
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Atheneum
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Back to the Top ↑

Search - De Basil's Ballets Russes

Loading...