000			02258nam a2200253 a 4500
001			034602
005			20231009192621.0
008			120517s2008 ctuaf b 001 0 eng
010			_a2008020365
020			_a9780300124620
050	0	0	_aGV1663 _b.V65 2008
082	0	0	_a792.8 VOL
100	1		_aVolynsky, Akim _d, 1863-1926
240	1	0	_aSelections _l. English _f. 2008
245	1	0	_aBallet's magic kingdom _b: selected writings on dance in Russia, 1911-1925 _c/ Akim Volynsky ; translated, edited, and with an introduction and notes by Stanley J. Rabinowitz.
260			_aNew Haven _b: Yale University Press _c, c2008.
300			_axliii, 288 p., [18] p. of plates _b: ill. _c; 25 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520			_aWe find out not only about the vicissitudes of Pavlova's alimentary canal but also about the skeletal structure of her knees, the size of her arch, the height of her jumps, her "sensuous" lower lip and the slope of her "ravishing" shoulders. All this and a clear explanation of the layers of her ample soul. What more could one want to know about the ballerina, long dead, whose name evokes, more than any other, the art she practiced - the art that plumbs the depths of the physical to reach, on occasion, the mystical? "Ballets Magic Kingdom" is the first English-language edition of the dance writings of Akim Volynsky, one of the greatest writers on ballet (don't worry, nobody has heard of him) in the whole 350 or so years of the art form's relatively brief history. The book, covering the years 1911-25, has been lovingly edited and translated by Stanley J. Rabinowitz, a professor of Russian at Amherst who directs the college's Center for Russian Culture and holds the Henry Steele Commager professorship there. The list of great writers on dance is short; a three-dimensional, nonverbal art, existing only in transient live performance, provides an excellent disincentive to use language. Not since the precise and furious writings of Lincoln Kirstein have we read (in English) such informed, cultured, and unapologetically opinionated prose on ballet.
650		0	_aBallet _x--History
651			_aRussia _x-History _y-1970-
700	1		_aRabinowitz, Stanley J.
942			_cMO
999			_c244709 _d244709