Todd Bolender, Janet Reed, and the Making of American Ballet

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A01=Martha Ullman West
Agnes de Mille
American Ballet Theatre
American choreography
Author_Martha Ullman West
Ballet Caravan
Black Ballet Dancers
Category=ATC
Category=ATQL
Catherine Littlefield
Christensen brothers
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Eugene Loring
George Balanchine
Germany
Great Depression
Janet Reed
Jerome Robbins
Kansas City Ballet
Katherine Dunham
Lew Christensen
musical comedy
New York City Ballet
Pacific Northwest Ballet
Regional Ballet
Ruthanna Boris
Todd Bolender
Turkey
West Coast Ballet Companies
Willam Christensen
women choreographers
World War II
WWII

Product details

  • ISBN 9780813066776
  • Weight: 750g
  • Dimensions: 155 x 233mm
  • Publication Date: 18 May 2021
  • Publisher: University Press of Florida
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
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Martha Ullman West illustrates how American ballet developed over the course of the twentieth century from an aesthetic originating in the courts of Europe into a stylistically diverse expression of a democratic culture. West places at center stage two artists who were instrumental to this story: Todd Bolender and Janet Reed.

Lifelong friends, Bolender (1914–2006) and Reed (1916–2000) were part of a generation of dancers who navigated the Great Depression, World War II, and the vibrant cultural scene of postwar New York City. They danced in the works of choreographers Lew and Willam Christensen, Eugene Loring, Agnes de Mille, Catherine Littlefield, Ruthanna Boris, and others who West argues were just as responsible for the direction of American ballet as the legendary George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.

The stories of Bolender, Reed, and their contemporaries also demonstrate that the flowering of American ballet was not simply a New York phenomenon. West includes little-known details about how Bolender and Reed laid the foundations for Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet in the 1970s and how Bolender transformed the Kansas City Ballet into a highly respected professional company soon after.

Passionate in their desire to dance and create dances, Bolender and Reed committed their lives to passing along their hard-won knowledge, training, and work. This book celebrates two unsung trailblazers who were pivotal to the establishment of ballet in America from one coast to the other.

Martha Ullman West is an arts writer specializing in dance and visual arts, based in Portland, Oregon. She has written for the New York Times, the Oregonian, Dance Magazine, Dance International, Ballet Review, Dance Chronicle, and the Chronicle Review.

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