Lynn Garafola – författare

La Nijinska is the first biography of twentieth-century ballet's premier female choreographer.Overshadowed in life and legend by her brother Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Nijinska had a far longer and more productive career. An architect of twentieth-century neoclassicism, she experienced the transformative power of the Russian Revolution and created her greatest work - Les Noces - under the influence of its avant-garde. Many of her ballets rested on the probing of gender boundaries, a mistrust of conventional gender roles, and the heightening of the ballerina's technical and artistic prowess. A prominent member of Russia Abroad, she worked with leading figures of twentieth-century art, music, and ballet, including Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Poulenc, Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Frederick Ashton, Alicia Markova, and Maria Tallchief. She was also a remarkable dancer in her own right with a bravura technique and powerful stage presence that enabled her to perform an unusually broad repertory. Finally, she was the author of an acclaimed volume of memoirs in addition to a major treatise on movement. Nijinska's career sheds new light on the modern history of ballet and of modernism more generally, recuperating the memory of lost works and forgotten artists, many of them women. But it also reveals the sexism pervasive in the upper echelons of the early and mid-twentieth-century ballet world, barriers that women choreographers still confront.

A landmark examination of the art and artists inspired by American dance from 1830 to 1960As an enduring wellspring of creativity for many artists throughout history, dance has provided a visual language to express such themes as the bonds of community, the allure of the exotic, and the pleasures of the body.  This book is the first major investigation of the visual arts related to American dance, offering an unprecedented, interdisciplinary overview of dance-inspired works from 1830 to 1960.   Fourteen essays by renowned historians of art and dance analyze the ways dance influenced many of America’s most prominent artists, including George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Cecilia Beaux, Isamu Noguchi, Aaron Douglas, Malvina Hoffman, Edward Steichen, Arthur Davies, William Johnson, and Joseph Cornell.  The artists did not merely represent dance, they were inspired to think about how Americans move, present themselves to one another, and experience time. Their artwork, in turn, affords insights into the cultural, social, and political moments in which it was created. For some artists, dance informed even the way they applied paint to canvas, carved a sculpture, or framed a photograph.  Richly illustrated, the book includes depictions of Irish-American jigs, African-American cakewalkers, and Spanish-American fandangos, among others, and demonstrates how dance offers a means for communicating through an aesthetic, static form.  Distributed for the Detroit Institute of ArtsExhibition Schedule:Detroit Institute of Arts(03/20/16–06/12/16)Denver Art Museum(07/10/16-10/02/16)Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art(10/22/16-01/16/17)

The first biography of the celebrated ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell and the iconic dance company he founded, from a renowned dance historianArthur Mitchell (1934–2018) was one of the first Black principal dancers at the New York City Ballet and a favorite of the legendary choreographer George Balanchine. He redefined American dance through his performance in ballets such as Agon and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and through his boundary-transcending company, the Dance Theatre of Harlem.Dance historian Lynn Garafola deftly traces Mitchell’s journey from his childhood in Harlem to international stardom and his decision—sparked by outrage over the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—to create a classical ballet company that celebrated Black artistry. Mitchell led the Dance Theatre of Harlem through more than forty years of triumphs and challenges, reshaping the cultural landscape and reenvisioning who belonged on the ballet stage.Drawing on over a decade of research, including scores of interviews and access to Mitchell’s own archives, Garafola has delivered the first full-length biography of Mitchell—a man who was ambitious, generous, mercurial, and wildly talented—as well as the first deeply researched history of his transformative dance company viewed within a broad cultural context. It is an essential portrait of a visionary who transformed the art of ballet and its practitioners forever.

In the history of twentieth-century ballet, no company has had so profound and far-reaching an influence as the Ballets Russes. Under the direction of impresario extraordinaire Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929), the Ballets Russes radically transformed the nature of ballet,its subject matter, movement idiom, choreographic style, stage space, music, scenic design, costume, even the dancer's physical appearance. From 1909 to 1929, it nurtured some of the greatest choreographers in dance history,Fokine, Nijinsky, Massine, and Balanchine,and created such classics as Les Sylphides, Firebird, Petrouchka, L'Après-midi d'un Faune, Les Noces, and Apollo. Diaghilev brought together some of the leading artists of his time, including composers Stravinsky, Debussy, and Prokofiev artists Picasso, Braque, and Matisse, and poets Hoffmansthal and Cocteau. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes is the most authoritative history of the company ever written and the first to examine it as a totality,its art, enterprise, and audience. Combining social and cultural history with illuminating discussions of dance, drama, music, art, economics, and public reception, Lynn Garafola paints an extraordinary portrait of the company that shaped ballet into what it is today.