Serenade Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

Toni Bentley a dancer for George Balanchine the greatest ballet maker of the 20th century tells the story of Serenade his iconic masterpiece and what it was like to danceand livein his world at New York City Ballet during its legendary era

Reading Bentleys Serenade made me feel as alive as I felt on the stage the moment that I fell in love with ballet A delicate balance of personal memoir rarefied elegance history of the arts and pure human interestMisty Copeland New York Times Book Review

A unique document about one of the greatest ballets ever created A beautiful readMikhail Baryshnikov

At age seventeenToni Bentley was chosen by Balanchine then in his final years to join the New York City Ballet From both backstage and onstage she carries us through the serendipitous history and physical intricacies and demands of Serenade its dazzling opening with seventeen women in a doublediamond pattern its radical even jazzy use of the highly refined language that is ballet its place in the choreographers own dramatic story of his immigration to the United States from Soviet Russia its mysticaland literalembodiment of the tradition of classical ballet in just thirtythree minutes

Bentley takes us inside the rarefied intense and thrilling world Balanchine created through his lifelong devotion to celebrating and expanding female beauty and strengtha world that inevitably passed upon his death An intimate elegy to grace and loss and to the imprint of a towering artist and his transcendent creation on Bentleys own life Serenade A Balanchine Story is a rich narrative by a dynamic artist about the nature of art itself at its most ephemeral and glorious