Different Drummer: The Life of Kenneth Macmillan - Rilegato

Jann Parry

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0571243029 ISBN 13: 9780571243020

Casa editrice: Faber and Faber, 2009

Riassunto

Kenneth MacMillan's ballets are in constant demand by world-famous companies, particularly "Romeo and Juliet", "Manon and Mayerling". However, MacMillan was tormented by an acute sense of being an outsider, at odds with the institutions in which he worked and their conventional expectations of what ballet should be. A real-life Billy Elliot from a Scottish working class family, MacMillan demonstrated a prodigious talent for dancing from an early age. Following the premature death of his mother, the young MacMillan sought an escape route from home and, despite his father's disapproval, secured a place at Sadler's Wells. Paradoxically he found himself crippled by stage-fright during the height of his professional career, leaving him with only one option - choreography. He went on to produce ballets which defied convention and became renowned for challenging audiences. The criticism he received fanned his anxieties but, despite this, MacMillan achieved international acclaim, becoming artistic director of both the Berlin Ballet and the Royal Ballet. On a personal level he found unexpected happiness with his wife and daughter in the later stages of his life, making it all the more tragic when he died suddenly at the age of 62. This stunning biography reveals a complex artist who fiercely guarded his own privacy, whilst his ballets communicated his darkest and most intimate thoughts.

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Recensione:

'Different Drumemr is a fine and searching study of Macmillan's life and work - admirable in its scrupulous detail as in its understanding of the subject ... a remarkable study in the nature of a powerful creative talent.' --Financial Times, 12 September, 2009

'Jann Parry's new biography of [Kenneth MacMillan] is at once an assiduously detailed history of the man and a psychological deconstruction of his work ...Parry's compassionate account enables us to approach it with new understanding.' --Observer, 20 September, 2009

'Jann Parry's magnificent life of [Kenneth MacMillan] ...Through astute observation and exhaustive research Parry, a former dance critic, delivers not just the life of a choreographic genius but also charts the history of modern British classical ballet.'
--Daily Express, 2 October, 2009

Jann Parry has written a biography on the grand scale, as extravagant as any of the ballets she describes it is not just a labour of love, but, one feels while reading it, an offering, an homage to the power of dance. --Patrick O Connor, Literary Review

Jann Parry's riveting biography ... Meticulous, authoritative and unflappable, Parry has done an excellent job in elucidating this fascinating but somewhat tirsesomely self-centred and over-sensitive man. Her authoritative biography will join Julie Kavanagh's portrait of Ashton and Meredith Daneman's of Fonteyn as primary sources for the study of British ballet. --Rupert Christiansen, The Spectator

Descrizione del libro:

This is the first complete biography of one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century – a hugely gifted man, often thought an outsider and plagued by anxiety.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Faber and Faber
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0571243029
• ISBN 13: 9780571243020
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 784