Louis Horst was a musician, conductor, and composer who, through his work with Martha Graham and other pioneers, profoundly affected the development of American modern dance. Here, Soares (Dance/Barnard College), formerly Horst's assistant, offers a carefully chronicled, well-documented account of his life and work. Born in 1884 of German immigrants, Horst was strongly encouraged by his father, himself a musician, to pursue a career in music. Self-supporting as a musician from his teens on, Horst began playing for the Denishawn dancers in 1915—a job that set his life's direction. It was here that he met Graham, and here that he began to consider the relationship between music and dance. By 1925, when Horst left Denishawn to study composition in Vienna, he had a basic philosophy: When dance and music are wed, ``both arts must sacrifice too much at times.'' How the two arts might better serve each other was Horst's concern when, after a year in Europe, he reunited with Graham (their relationship was emotional and physical as well as collegial). Together, they began to alter the world of dance, music, and the relationship between the two. It is no overstatement to say that Graham's work was born of this collaboration. Soares recounts in detail the ensuing, fruitful years, during which Horst accompanied Graham and her cohorts in choreography, teaching, and performing—and at an astounding pace. Graham's marriage to Erick Hawkins eventually brought a sharp rift between the dancer and the musician, but Horst continued to work at a breakneck pace with other choreographers. He died in 1964. Working with full access to Horst's diaries and other sources, Soares does scholarly justice to her material. Readers may miss some of the passion that was a hallmark of this era and of Graham's life and associations (conveyed so well by Agnes de Mille in Martha, 1991), but, still, this is a worthwhile account of an important figure. (Thirty-two b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: June 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-8223-1226-3
Page Count: 251
Publisher: Duke Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1992
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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