5 comments about First Position: A Century of Ballet Artists.

1. I found Singer's book quite inspiring, with its intimate look into the art and lives of these 15 ballet artists. Each dancer was introduced to ballet in different ways, and each experienced such unique individual paths toward their greatness, yet all shared in the total dedication to their art form. Singer's own devotion and love for the subject of ballet shines brightly with each turn of the page. I believe this book to be an important read for dance professionals, students, and anyone who loves dance. Bravo!



2. It is not hyperbole to state that this is simply one of the best books ever written on the subject of dance. The things Ms. Singer gets these master artists to talk about; the way she contextualizes and frames their insights; her own passion bubbling beneath the surface; her sure, elegant hand and natural storytelling instincts -- are all pure gold, illuminating the mysteries not only of dance, but of the creative impulse itself. This is an indispensable work by a mature artist operating at the height of her powers.



3. Loved reading the stories about each dancer. I am a former dancer who loves ballet and Ms. Singer's book provides an insightful and entertaining glimpse of the challenges ballet dancers face as they train, overcome injuries, hop-scotch through the world's major dance companies, work with different choreographers and try to maintain a fulfilling family and social life. A delightful read.



4. I love ballet and I see a great deal of it; however, I admit to being rather ignorant about the art, its history, its famous and infamous. Singer's book has been great fun to read as well as providing some wonderful historical and cultural perspectives. If you're not a balletomane yet, this book will help you become one.



5. I was extremely disappointed in this book. The viewpoint was clearly formed from inside dance gossip and stories rather than a dispassionate view. Clearly the author does not understand the time frame or the dynamics that took place in some of her observations. This book gives a warped understanding of some genuinely complex moments,personalities and events that took place in the dance world. Her views cannot be taken as facts as I believe she presents them.

No comments about Of the Fields, Lately.

2 comments about 365 Afterschool Activities.

1. As a mother of two young boys, age 6 and 8, I can tell you that kids would much rather plop down and watch cartoons rather than make their own fun. Ms. Ellison's book has changed all that in my family. Now the kids flip through the book with me to find an activity they'd like to do, and don't even complain that they're missing their favorite TV shows! My oldest son has even started a club for the kids in our neighborhood based on an activity in the book. Thank you, Ms. Ellison, for helping my family turn off the TV and turn on their brains!



2. I babysit for 2 little kids, and this is like a Godsend! All the activities in this book are do-able, and actually really fun. Every single one is fun and you can do all of them with your kids! It's terrific! Plus it gets them AWAY from the TV.

No comments about Drama Therapy: Concepts, Theories, and Practices.

5 comments about Self-Portrait.

1. I got this book because I am very interested in manic depression (or bipolar disorder) and I knew Gene Tierney had gone through the disease. My purchasing this book also had to do with my admiring Miss Tierney as an actress, for giving astounding performances in films like "Leave Her to Heaven". What I found was not only a fascinating read written by an honest and courageous lady, but also a very well written account of a victim of MD. I learned many things from this book and I must say, Miss Tierney was extremely honest, chose her words well, and most of all, wrote about famous celebrities like her former husband Oleg Cassini as well as former boyfriend John Kennedy without showing any negative feelings towards them. She writes with such class and frankness, making this a must for every fan of her work.



2. I bought this book because I have become a huge fan of Ms. Tierney's films. I was curious about her life and movie career. I read most of the book with a puzzled look on my face and feeling several moments of deja vu because she repeated thoughts and memories over and over and would jump from subject to subject without rhyme or reason. I would read some paragraphs over just to try and make sense of the whole thing. I do think she was intelligent and a loving mother, which I think the birth of her handicapped child literally drove her insane. My final thoughts of the book as I finished were feelings of sadness for her and truly wishing I did not know about her the things I had read because now I will watch her films through different eyes.



3. I had seen some old movies with Gere Tierney and even purchased some from Amazon. While brousing the TV channels I came across a biography of Gene. This left some unanswered questions so I ordered the book. It was a great read and very informative. I did not know that the Agatha Christy novel "The Mirrow Cracked" was based on Gene Tierneys life.



4. Called the most beautiful woman in movie history by Darryl Zanuck (founder of 20th Century Fox), actress Gene Tierney also proves herself a good and insightful writer with this accomplished "self-portrait". I purchased this on a whim in an antique store, and have read it several times. I appreciate her honesty regarded her psychological problems and the fun tidbits about Hollywood life in the 1940s. It's unfortunate that the name Gene Tierney is so unfamiliar these days. She was a talented actress and writer, and I enjoy her work very much.



5. When I asked Amazon to locate this book for me it was as a result of watching Biography on A & E. After presenting their program on Gene Tierney, they told viewers about the book. I was extremely pleased that Amazon located a copy for me even though it was out of print. Not only was I pleased to obtain the book but I was extremely pleased with its content. I have been a fan of Miss Tierney since first seeing her in movies. I especially liked "Laura" and "Leave Her to Heaven" and have videos of both. But nothing can compare with the intimate details she revealed in her life story and I shall treasure the book always. Unfortunately she was swept up in the dark side of the motion picture industry where she was taken advantage of in so many ways. Although we, her fans, were cheated when she retired from motion pictures so soon, I cannot help but feel she did the right thing by turning her back on the sad memories brought about during those years and seeking a happier life. The book ranks high on the list of treasures in my personal library.

1 comments about Katherine Dunham: DANCING A LIFE.

1. Katherine Dunham: Dancing A Life is the in-depth biography of Katherine Dunham, a truly talented, remarkably gifted, and influential twentieth century dancer, choreographer, and founder of the first self-supporting African American dance company. Incorporating Dunham's published memoirs, archival documents, and extensive interviews with Dunham's colleagues, students, and dance company members, Katherine Dunham: Dancing A Life by Joyce Aschenbrenner (Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville) is a meticulously researched, objectively presented, accessibly written, biographically based revelation of what a life of dance is truly like, as well as revealing the heart and soul behind the graceful movements on stage.

No comments about On the Art of the No Drama: The Major Treatises of Zeami (Princeton Library of Asian Translations).

2 comments about The Material Ghost: Films and Their Medium.

1. What a breath of fresh air this book is. Perez manages to tread the fine line between theory and practise with grace. A great survey of filmmakers and film theory alike. Gilberto Perez' personal style makes for a very acessible text, and he doesn't shy away from 'unpopular' rejections of theory he disagrees with. An extremely valuable resource for students of film that helps to make sense of the often complicated threads of film theory.



2. GHilberto Perez has been the country's foremost if neglected film critic for a number of years now. For years, his film and fiction reviews in such a strange place as the usually staid if not conservative Hudson Review enlivened that venue and revitalized it. His reviews now for the Yale Review arew extraordinary in their stylish elegance, their wit, and their moral verve, if one can employ that seemingly oxymoronic phrase. Perez has a scope that is unusually large, and one feels, at once, assured that his attention to movies is neither escapist nor propagandistic. He eschews the reductionism of most theoretical work done today, and as a matter of fact makes the most subtle theoretical p[erspective against false theory. This does not in any way mean, as some might guess, that he is antagonistic to theory. He seems to hate stupidity most of all, and this entitles him to be called a poet among film critics. His love of the particular is such that his pobservations on shots, sequences, and film form at its most atomic or fleeting is rendered in bold, concrete and realized phrases. HYe is the only film critic alive today who can make a plot seem to have moral and visual diemsnions.By this I mean, he is never boring and he is always honest.

   Perez's scope is seen in the very movies he underlines. He does not atte,mp[t to be falsely synoptic, but there is a sweep in him from the most experimental shadows of Sytraub to the German new wave and the American cowboy genre. I think it is not for nothing that he is able to embrace these phenomena without Procrustean dogmatics. Perez was raised in Cuba, and he recounts his love for cinema as a child. He was also a prodicigous cartoonist, and he has never lost his eagerness to caricature silly positions. He also has a love, in the broadest sense, for representation itself, and his college years were spent with the love of physics and science. I think his argumentation gains from his knowledge of science and his love of truth-telling. He has, from Cuba and his own "exile" in America, a perspective that seems more international than most. He is able to have a de;lectation for Amertican and German and New Wave cinema that never strikes one as provincial. But he has enough of what he calls, imn relation to Antonioni, the point of view of the stranger,m to make his readings fresh and strange, de-=automotized, as it were. His style is never pompous, but it is meant, uneerringly, to convince, even to conquer, and it does. He is aggressive in tirade and can destroy weakened critics of jargon and the academy./ This is not to say that he is not learned, and he does indeed represemnt for me the best in the academy as it tries to right itself or inflect itself with pluralist radiance. I would say that in his generaytoion he is the person least deformed by the false perspectives offered to all of us. And yet he has engulfed and digested and synthesized as much of semiotics and the best of continental theory.

   I would add that for me, Perez succeeds because he has a combination of practical and theoretical criticism that makes him the best classroom model for prose. Do have your students buy this book at any levcel. Let the students at the udnergraduate level stretch a bit and enjoy his style. Let the graduate students realize what they are missing in their bound platiturfdes and dogmatics. And for all, the book should be a starting-point for debate and discussion. I think the best chapters are already classics: the essaays on Kirostami, Godard and Antonioni, for example, cannot be bettered in the literature as I know it. This book is not a simple volume but really a life's summa and should be taken extremely seriously. Of the l00 rewcent books on film that I have read in the last two decades, there is nothing that approaches this book. I would say again that it is arguably the best for its sanity and breadth, but it not merely "balanced" or Johnsonian. Perez has been willing to talke risks both in his select9ons and his deletions. He now demands a stremnuous reader, a creative reader. Will he get it? The health of film studies depends partly on that answer.

No comments about Greek Drama and Dramatists.

No comments about Semiotics and the Analysis of Film.