Review by Booklist Review
As dance critic Jennifer Homans wrote in a piece for The New Yorker, "Serenade was Balanchine's first American dance . . . designed to teach his young dancers how to move--more, bigger, freer." Decades later (Serenade was created in 1934), Bentley was one of those young dancers newly selected by Balanchine for the New York City Ballet, when she first danced in this ballet set to Tchaikovsky's "Serenade for Strings." She writes that this "will be the story of Balanchine, his masterpiece, and my own experience in the vicinity of both." And what a story it is! Bentley skillfully interweaves the history of the ballet and its creator with her own reflections in a compelling narrative that takes us backstage and onstage in the intensely focused world of ballet. We not only read about the ballet production but also get to experience it firsthand from the point of view of a dancer. A must-read for anyone who has seen Serenade, while anyone who hasn't will certainly want to search for it online after reading Bentley's thoughtful and elegant memoir.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Former dancer Bentley (Winter Season) revisits "the man and the ballet that are the story of my life" in this touching and eloquent tribute to choreographer George Balanchine (1904--1983). The author was 17 when she was chosen by Balanchine in the late '70s to perform with the New York City Ballet. In 10 years she danced his 1934 masterpiece, Serenade, more than 50 times--knowing it, she writes, "as a part of my own body." Using the dance's various movements and scenes as an underpinning for the narrative, she tells Balanchine's story, and her own, as one of many who were entranced by the choreographer's "no-nonsense Sufi master soul." In lithe prose, she dissects the artistry behind Serenade--brushing past its "pale blue tulle" to meditate on its symbolism and wavelike motion--then glissades to thoughtful reflections on Balanchine's fairy tale--like early life in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he went from dancing at the tsar's Imperial Ballet School to "all-but-orphaned starvation" to studying music at St. Petersburg's famed observatory. Alongside this runs a rich elegy to Bentley's dancing career, which ended when she was 25 due to sustained injuries. Her command of ballet and its history is breathtaking, and her reverence for Balanchine's genius is consistently moving. This behind-the-scenes tour of a rarefied world will enchant ballet lovers. (Apr.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Former ballerina and prolific writer Bentley (Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal) painstakingly deconstructs Serenade, George Balanchine's masterpiece and his first American ballet. Bentley writes as she once danced, with grace and elegance, as she captures the haunting beauty of an art form that exists to be seen and experienced. Sprinkled throughout her breakdown of Serenade is an exploration of Balanchine's life; a look at his New York City Ballet in the 1970s; a history of ballet focusing on France's Louis XIV, who started the first ballet school; and even brief biographies of composer Tchaikovsky (whose music Serenade is set to) and choreographer Marius Ivanovich Petipa. But Bentley saves her effusive descriptions for the dance, for her very personal experiences in the 10 years she spent with the company (from the mid-1970s to the '80s), and for the brilliance of Balanchine, who was "primarily, after all, an architect of spirit, wrangling its evanescence to the stage, into our bodies, and then out again in our movement." Included is a moving story of her visit to his deathbed, when he made "an invisible girl feel visible--one final adjustment." VERDICT A touching tribute to a master, this work will delight balletomanes.--Lisa Henry
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A former dancer describes her relationship with George Balanchine and one of his most famous ballets. Reading a book about ballet is like listening to ice skating on the radio: One can imagine the scene, but the strengths of one medium don't fully translate the beauty of the other. Bentley gamely tries to translate the majesty of one ballet in her latest book, and with more success than one might expect. The ballet is Balanchine's groundbreaking Serenade, which premiered in 1934, a piece she danced 50 times for New York City Ballet in the late 1970s, starting when she was 16. The author admits that she sees the choreographer only through "clarifying tears," writing that her book is "the story of Balanchine, his masterpiece, and my own experience in the vicinity of both." Bentley describes the ballet's three movements and the steps that constitute the piece: every arabesque and tendu and turnout. Wisely, she expands her focus to include a brief history of ballet, including France's King Louis XIV, "a very good dancer of professional quality," and his establishment of the Académie Royale de Danse, "the first academic national ballet school in the world"; Balanchine's early years in Russia, where he was born in St. Petersburg in 1904, an upbringing that swung from riches to destitution and back; and brief biographies of Tchaikovsky, "the undisputed musical father of classical ballet," and Marius Ivanovich Petipa, the pioneering 19th-century choreographer whose life included duels and a scandalous elopement. Bentley's tone is uneven: effervescent when she describes Balanchine's ballet--"Serenade is a slant shadow on my heart. She bifurcates my being, my life"--but more restrained in historical passages. Yet the book endearingly captures her passion for ballet and the genius of a man who could incorporate a ballerina's fall during rehearsal into a permanent part of his dance. A heartfelt tribute to an influential choreographer and one of his crowning achievements. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
