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The Dancer Within
Intimate Conversations with Great Dancers
Wesleyan Dance
Edited Aron Hirt-Manheimer
Sales Date: 2008-06-30
Intimate portraits of some of the most beloved dancers in America
The Dancer Within is a collection of photographic portraits and short essays based on confessional interviews with forty dancers and entertainers, many of them world-famous. Well-known on the concert stage, on Broadway, in Hollywood musicals, and on television, the personalities featured in this book speak with extraordinary candor about all stages of the dancer's life—from their first dance class to their signature performances and their days of reflection on the artist's life. The Dancer Within reveals how these artists triumphed, but also how they overcame adversity, including self-doubt, injuries, and aging. Most of all, this book is about the courage, commitment, love, and passion of these performers in their quest for artistic excellence. The reader will quickly realize that "the dancer within" is a metaphor of the human spirit.
Acknowledgments
Editor's Note
Yuriko
Barrie Chase
Ethan Stiefel
Leslie Caron
Fernando Bujones
Leonard Crofoot
Cynthia Gregory
Jacques d'Amboise
Dudley Williams
Mary Hinkson
Bill Evans
Brenda Bufalino
Chet Walker
Donna McKecknie
Mitzi Gaynor
Joe Tremaine
Chita Rivera
Russ Tamblyn
Rita Moreno
Natalia Makarova
Shirley MacLaine
Mikhail Baryshnkiov
Liza Minnelli
Joel Grey
Ben Vereen
Lori Belilove
Rasta Thomas
Marine Jahan
Robert La Fosse
Gemze de Lappe
James Mitchell
Paula Kelly
Martine van Hamel
Desmond Richardson
Jean Butler
Peter Boal
Marge Champion
Eiko and Koma
Julio Bocca
Mr. Wiggles
Bibliography
Index
ROSE EICHENBAUM is an award-winning photographer and author of Masters of Movement: Portraits of America's Great Choreographers (2004). Her work has appeared in Dance Magazine, Dance Spirit, and the Los Angeles Times, and her photographs are featured in a Smithsonian Institution's traveling exhibit, The Dancer Within, opening in April 2008. She lives in Encino, California. ARON HIRT-MANHEIMER is the author and editor of numerous articles, magazines, and books. He lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
"Eichenbaum's disarmingly simple questions are clearly based on research about each actor's work, and the results are not standard-issue interviews."
~Leonard Malton, Movie Crazy
"Rose Eichenbaum has once again captured the heart and soul of the dancer's life in The Dancer Within. Her brilliant action photography of dance performance alongside her probing portraiture and insightful text has penetrated this ephemeral art in a memorable way."
~Donald McKayle
"Working with Rose was spiritual; an intellectual, magically creative experience that woke up some old muscles, reminding me of why I loved dancing so much in the first place.""
~Russ Tamblyn
""Eichenbaum's disarmingly simple questions are clearly based on research about each actor's work, and the results are not standard-issue interviews.""
~Leonard Malton, Movie Crazy
""Getting into the psyche of an actor is not an easy task. Rose Eichenbaum succeeds admirably with an open mind and probing questions and the result...is a delightful book consisting of interviews with 35 talented personalities that will keep your interest from cover to cover.""
~Tim Boxer, 15 Minutes