WORLDS APART: The Autobiography of a Dancer from Brooklyn

by Robert Maiorano ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 1980

Maiorano, New York City Ballet soloist and husband of picture-book artist Rachel Isadora, recalls growing up in a tough section of Brooklyn with a widowed mother, poor but determined to give her children the best in dancing and music lessons, and a sister who, in adolescence, dropped her lessons for the teenage street scene and took to reviling her mother in the language of the streets. Maiorano tells of screaming matches in their cold water flat, of neighborhood gang fights in the background, of turning down the Little League team for Saturday ballet class, and especially of the dance classes and lessons that dominated his life. Once he becomes, toward the end, the youngest member of the company, glimpses of Balanchine and awed reports of a European tour add interest to the narrative. But Maiorano is not a writer. He tries to focus on particular scenes (many begin or end with his running up the steps to his apartment), but the scenes fall flat because he doesn't give them shape or feeling. Early on, he tells how eagerly he was chosen for the Nutcracker because boy dancers were so rare. For the same reason the book might have a place.

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION