``People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.'' This is Martha Graham, all right: intense, imperious, passionate, and at times surprisingly funny. She died early this year, still choreographing, still bitterly protesting old age, still fretting over her company's financial and artistic future. This, her own account of her life and work, is her vivid last word. Graham was born in 1894 (``Grover Cleveland was in his second presidential term...Victoria was still Queen''), in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She reveals herself as a solitary, dramatic child in an unusual family: ``My childhood years were a balance of light and dark...the coal industry was dominant and everything we wore was eventually covered in soot.'' She takes us through her development as a dancer and choreographer, and is open and focused about the motivation and meaning of her work: ``There are always ancestral footsteps behind me, pushing me...gestures are flowing through me.'' On the strong female roles she has created: ``All the things I do are in every woman. Every woman is a Medea. Every woman is a Jocasta....'' This is not to say that men are not important to Graham: ``Men in all walks of life have sustained me. I adore men. Many have adored me.'' Many other choreographers and figures from the dance world figure here (her remarks on Lincoln Kirstein are priceless), as well as such varied personalities as Helen Keller, Madonna, and Halston. And Graham offers an honest, touching account of her brief marriage to choreographer Erick Hawkins; she tells us simply, ``There never was anyone after Erick.'' Paramount Pictures once offered a large sum to film her life story, Graham says. But she replied, ``No, absolutely not. I can ruin my own reputation in five minutes. I don't need help.'' These brief memoirs can only enhance her reputation by helping us remember the human side of a creative giant.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-385-26503-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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