Come Dance With Me
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Yellowed
One of the most remarkable figures in the history of Western dance tells her own story in Come Dance With Me, a candid and vivid memoir by the Irish-born dancer, choreographer, and visionary institution-builder Ninette de Valois. Born Edris Stannus in 1898, de Valois chronicles her extraordinary journey from early performances in music halls and pantomime to her transformative years with Sergei Diaghilev's legendary Ballets Russes, before she set her sights on a far greater ambition: the creation of a permanent national ballet for Britain. With precision and warmth, she details the founding of her Academy of Choreographic Art, her fateful partnership with Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells Theatre, and the painstaking, often precarious work of building what would ultimately become The Royal Ballet. Written with the authority of a pioneer who shaped an entire art form, this memoir is as much a portrait of an era as it is a personal account, illuminating the cultural landscape of early 20th-century London and the fierce dedication required to bring classical ballet into the British national consciousness. De Valois writes with elegant economy and dry wit, offering intimate portraits of the artists, patrons, and personalities — from Frederick Ashton to Margot Fonteyn — who helped forge a great institution from almost nothing. A testament to creative will and artistic vision, Come Dance With Me leaves the reader asking one irresistible question: what does it truly take to build something that outlasts you?
Author: Ninette De Valois
Format: Hardback
Published: 1959, RU
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Yellowed
One of the most remarkable figures in the history of Western dance tells her own story in Come Dance With Me, a candid and vivid memoir by the Irish-born dancer, choreographer, and visionary institution-builder Ninette de Valois. Born Edris Stannus in 1898, de Valois chronicles her extraordinary journey from early performances in music halls and pantomime to her transformative years with Sergei Diaghilev's legendary Ballets Russes, before she set her sights on a far greater ambition: the creation of a permanent national ballet for Britain. With precision and warmth, she details the founding of her Academy of Choreographic Art, her fateful partnership with Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells Theatre, and the painstaking, often precarious work of building what would ultimately become The Royal Ballet. Written with the authority of a pioneer who shaped an entire art form, this memoir is as much a portrait of an era as it is a personal account, illuminating the cultural landscape of early 20th-century London and the fierce dedication required to bring classical ballet into the British national consciousness. De Valois writes with elegant economy and dry wit, offering intimate portraits of the artists, patrons, and personalities — from Frederick Ashton to Margot Fonteyn — who helped forge a great institution from almost nothing. A testament to creative will and artistic vision, Come Dance With Me leaves the reader asking one irresistible question: what does it truly take to build something that outlasts you?