Memoir Dance

Arguably the greatest choreographer who ever lived, George Balanchine was one of the cultural titans of the twentieth century—the New York Times called him "the Shakespeare of dancing." His radical approach to choreography—and life—reinvented the art of ballet and made him a legend. Written with enormous style and artistry, and based on more than one hundred interviews and research in archives across Russia, Europe, and the Americas, Mr. B carries us through Balanchine's tumultuous and high-pitched life story and into the making of his extraordinary dances.

Before Mark Morris became “the most successful and influential choreographer alive” (The New York Times), he was a six-year-old in Seattle cramming his feet into Tupperware glasses so that he could practice walking on pointe. Often the only boy in the dance studio, he was called a sissy, a term he wore like a badge of honor. He was unlike anyone else, deeply gifted and spirited.

Cheryl Burke has been dancing since the age of four and competing since she was 13 years old. Over several exciting seasons, she has captivated Dancing with the Stars audiences with her incredible dance performances, Emmy-nominated choreography, high energy, and bright smile. In Dancing Lessons, she takes you from her childhood years into the world of competitive ballroom dancing and on to the hit TV show.

In December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, the most famous male dancer in the Western world, moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and three-year-old daughter and began to go mad. A prodigy from his youth in Russia, Nijinsky came to international fame as a principal dancer in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. When psychosis struck, he began to imagine himself as married to God. Although he lived another 30 years, he never regained his sanity. This diary is Nijinsky's confession and his prophecy, the only sustained, on-the-spot account we have by a major artist of entering psychosis.

In 1990, IBM had its most profitable year ever. By 1993, the company was on a watch list for extinction, victimized by its own lumbering size, an insular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.

When Lauren Kessler was 12, her ballet instructor crushed not just her dreams of being a ballerina but also her youthful self-assurance. Now, many decades and three children later, Kessler embarks on a journey to join a professional company to perform in The Nutcracker. Raising the Barre is more than just one woman's story; it is a story about shaking things up, taking risks, and ignoring good sense and forgetting how old you are and how you're "supposed" to act.

Follow Paul Oakenfold—world-renowned DJ and dance music pioneer—as he tells his incredible story of a phenomenal career at the beating heart of dance. Paul's journey takes him from a musical baptism in 1980s New York and underground club nights in London to running a seminal dance record label and a legendary trip to Ibiza that introduced him to trance and changed the face of dance music forever.

In September of 2022, twenty-five years after Leonard Peltier received a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents, the Democratic National Committee unanimously passed a resolution urging President Joe Biden to release him. Peltier has affirmed his innocence ever since his sentencing in 1977—his case was made fully and famously in Peter Matthiessen’s best-selling In the Spirit of Crazy Horse—and many remain convinced he was wrongly convicted. A wise and unsettling book, Prison Writings is both memoir and manifesto, chronicling Peltier’s life in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas.

Louise Erdrich’s first major work of nonfiction, The Blue Jay’s Dance, brilliantly and poignantly examines the joys and frustrations, the compromises and insights, and the difficult struggles and profound emotional satisfactions the acclaimed author experienced in the course of one twelve—month period—from a winter pregnancy through a spring and summer of new motherhood to her return to writing in the fall. In exquisitely lyrical prose, Erdrich illuminates afresh the large and small events that every parent will recognize and appreciate.

Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.

A Syria-born dancer offers his deeply personal story of war, statelessness, and the pursuit of the art of dance in this inspirational memoir.

Viscount Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), known as ‘The Hero’ during his own lifetime was both an inspiring commander and an innovative tactician, becoming a rear admiral after defeating the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. He was also responsible for the great victories of the Nile (1798) and Copenhagen (1801). Revered by his officers and men, he was renowned for both his arrogance and his scandalous love affair with the beautiful Emma Hamilton.

The Masked Dance is a candid personal reflection on the psychological, religious, and cultural influences at the core of domestic violence. Monica vividly conveys her spiritual battle against the entanglements of the abuse cycle while unveiling the latent messages that cultivate emotional and physical violence against women. This book opens urgently needed conversations about Christian culture and what its hidden messages say about the value of a woman’s soul versus the value of her marriage.

A powerful meditation on identity and belonging, Sejal Shah explores the tension of being both invisible and hyper-visible in a country that struggles with race. The daughter of immigrants from India and Kenya, Shah wrestles with her experiences growing up in—and returning to—western New York, an area of stark racial and socioeconomic segregation. Her work illuminates how we are all marked by family and place; by the limits of our bodies; by our losses and regrets; by who and what we love; by our ambivalences and our silences.

Includes audiobook-exclusive bonus pep talks from Laurieann! A-list choreographer Laurieann Gibson guides creators of all kinds to embrace their passions and achieve success, providing a practical road map to never giving up on your dream. Have you felt stuck like you’re just running in place, fearful of taking the next step? World-renowned Emmy-nominated choreographer and creative visionary Laurieann Gibson shares personal stories from her 20+ career in entertainment, words of encouragement, and practical advice to help you reach your full potential.

It would be easy to say Where the Shadows Dance is a memoir about a marriage—but marriage is simply the setting. Dana Killion dives deep into what we do for love, what we do because of love, how love can break us, how love can save us, and how the most important love is the love we feel for ourselves, because without it, no other kind can ever be as rich.

Disco music has earned an unflattering reputation for being garish and flashy; however, it was the voice of a generation that spoke using the power of dance to unite people. Now for the first time, you can hear the compelling never-been-told story of the rise of the New York disco scene. TBOF discotheques attracted everyone from CEOs to mailroom clerks, from Rick James to Elizabeth Taylor, and from big-time mobsters to FBI agents. This unprecedented collection of humanity made it impossible to know what excitement would unfold each night.

From the illicit reggae blues dances and acid-rock free festivals of the 1970s, through the ecstasy-fuelled Second Summer of Love in 1988, to the increasingly corporate dance music culture of the post-Covid era, Party Lines is a groundbreaking new history of UK dance music, exploring its pivotal role in the social, political and economic shifts on which modern Britain has been built.

Stunned and in disbelief, author Shelby Wagner, watched as the young nurses walked away after informing her that “Mr. Wagner didn’t make it!” A once-confident woman is shattered with grief, unable to accept that her husband is "gone". As visions of a lonely and uncertain future danced before her, she asked God why he had not taken her too. But God had plans for her. Wagner's story is provocative and captivating. Her insights and coping strategies are invaluable.

In this captivating memoir, Duke recounts his adventures and ass-inine misadventures with mules, donkeys and horses as he introduces listeners to the complexity and variety of personalities among these intelligent creatures. Through prose and poetry, he shows the deep bond that can form between humans and equines.