Customer Reviews

The Unmaking of a Dancer: An Unconventional Life

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think non-dancers realize that dancers have to work very, very hard for their art. Brady's interesting and heartbreaking biography outlines the ugliness behind this beautiful art form.

George Ballanchine (sp?) controlled his own company, and indirectly other ballet companies by setting up impossible physical standards. Ballanchine liked dancers to be skeletally thin--so Brady and other dancers performed physical feats that would stagger a professional football player while at the same time being grossly malnourished. Ballanchine and other directors treated his dancers as machines, not human beings. Dancers were to "dance through" injuries, sometimes permanently crippling themselves.

The psychological torture was almost as bad and almost a parody of a patriarchal system. Mr. B wrote the gospel and all were to listen and not question the Holy Writ. And, naturally the patriarch manipulated the women comparing one to another, manipulating jealousy among the dancers and playing favorits.

Dancers for the New York City Ballet, living in an expesnsive city were paid pittances so that the Ballet could pay the superstars huge salaries and buy elaborate costumes.

Another reviewer castigated Joan Brady for her ego. In contrast I applaud her for her common sense in walking away from this insanity, struggling years later to learn how to dance again, and then realizing that she could walk away from madness again.

This book is out of print in the U.S. It has been reprinted in the U.K. under the title _Prologue_.

An amazing book that transports you to the world of Berkeley California in the 1950's and the fear of the Red Scare and how it seeped into the lives of countless innocent idealist, then NYC and the draconian fist of Balanchine later the UK and redemption and finding a sense of self. What a life Joan Brady has led. NOT to be missed!!

Joan let's you in on her privet life of being a dancer. From diets to injury care being a dancer isn't easy. The hard truth that your friend made the touring group and you didn't, crying in the dressing rooms. This beautiful autobioaphy let's you in on the secret life of a dancer.

Yes, it is an honest book and it does reveal the sad puny world of dancers. Moreover the life of Brady one of the biggest egoists I have read so far. Through out her book she exposes her constant envious and pretensious ways, and her other interest other than herself seemed to be her mother's other love, the man she steals and marries to, regardless her mother's suffering. She seems not to really care of anyone but herself, and even his husband seemed a sort of price for her. I did learn not to be like her. Very, very cold and stupid individual, hence a very mundane book.She does not in any part of the book give even a little insight into the real beauty and important of dance. Dance for her is a way to be proved better than others, sad very sad.Again the only help is to get away as far as possible from being like her.