The internationally acclaimed new book that takes you behind the scenes to reveal how ballet really happens: In a scuffed-up studio, a veteran dancer transmits the magic of an eighty-year-old ballet to a performer barely past drinking age. In a converted barn, an indomitable teacher creates ballerinas as she has for more than half a century. In a monastic mirrored room, dancers from as near as New Jersey and as far as Mongolia learn works as old as the nineteenth century and as new as this morning. Snowflakes zooms ...
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The internationally acclaimed new book that takes you behind the scenes to reveal how ballet really happens: In a scuffed-up studio, a veteran dancer transmits the magic of an eighty-year-old ballet to a performer barely past drinking age. In a converted barn, an indomitable teacher creates ballerinas as she has for more than half a century. In a monastic mirrored room, dancers from as near as New Jersey and as far as Mongolia learn works as old as the nineteenth century and as new as this morning. Snowflakes zooms in on an intimate view of one full season in the life of one of America's top ballet companies and schools: Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet. But it also tracks the Land of Ballet to venues as celebrated as New York and Monte Carlo and as seemingly ordinary as Bellingham, Washington and small-town Pennsylvania. Never before has a book taken readers backstage for such a wide-ranging view of the ballet world from the wildly diverse perspectives of dancers, choreographers, stagers, teachers, conductors, musicians, rehearsal pianists, lighting directors, costumers, stage managers, scenic artists, marketers, fundraisers, students, and even pointe shoe fitters--often in their own remarkably candid words. The book follows characters as colorful as they are talented. Versatile dancers from around the globe team up with novice choreographers and those as renowned as Susan Stroman, Christopher Wheeldon, and Twyla Tharp to create art on deadline. At the book's center is Peter Boal, a former New York City Ballet star in his third year as PNB's artistic director, as he manages conflicting constituencies with charm, tact, rationality and diplomacy. Readers look over Boal's shoulder as he makes tough decisions about programming, casting, scheduling and budgeting that eventually lead the calm, low-key leader to declare that in his job, "You have to be willing to be hated." Snowflakes shows how ballet is made, funded, and sold. It escorts you front and center to the kick zone of studio rehearsals. It takes you to the costume shop where elegant tutus and gowns are created from scratch. It brings you backstage to see sets and lighting come alive while stagehands get lovingly snarky and obscene on their headsets. It sits you down in meetings where budgets get slashed and dreams get funded--and axed. It shows you the inner workings of Nutcracker, from kids' charming auditions to no-nonsense marketing meetings, from snow bags in the flies to dancing snowflakes who curse salty flurries that land on their tongues. It follows the tempestuous assembly of a version of Romeo and Juliet that runs afoul of so much pressure, disease, injury, and blood that the dancers begin to call it cursed. Snowflakes uncovers the astounding way ballets, with no common form of written preservation, are handed down from generation to generation through the prodigious memories of brilliant athletes who also happen to be artists. It visits cattle-call auditions and rigorous classes, tells the stories of dancers whose parents sacrificed for them and dancers whose parents refused to. It meets the resolute woman who created a dance school more than fifty years ago in a Carlisle, Pennsylvania barn and grew it into one of America's most reliable ballerina factories. It shows ballet's appeal to kids from low-income neighborhoods and board members who live in mansions. Shattering longstanding die-for-your-art clich???s, this book uncovers the real drama in the daily lives of fiercely dedicated artists in slippers and pointe shoes-and the musicians, stagehands, costumers, donors and administrators who support them. Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of Ballet brings readers the exciting truth of how ballet actually happens.
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Add this copy of Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of to cart. $2.79, good condition, Sold by Seattle Goodwill rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Seattle, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Cadwallader and Stern.
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May have some shelf-wear due to normal use. Your purchase funds free job training and education in the greater Seattle area. Thank you for supporting Goodwill's nonprofit mission!
Add this copy of Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of to cart. $4.39, good condition, Sold by Goodwill Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hillsboro, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Cadwallader and Stern.
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Add this copy of Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of to cart. $9.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Cadwallader and Stern.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
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Add this copy of Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of to cart. $22.00, very good condition, Sold by Turn-The-Page Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Skyway, WA, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Cadwallader & Stern.
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Very Good. No Dust Jacket. New York: Cadwallader & Stern, 2011. 1st printing. Square and unmarked. Lacking dj. Full cloth binding. 897pp. --'Snowflakes' zooms in on an intimate view of one full season in the life of one of America's top ballet companies and schools: Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/No Dust Jacket. 8vo-8"-9" Tall.
Add this copy of Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of to cart. $29.98, very good condition, Sold by Robert Harper Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hyattsville, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by Cadwallader and Stern.
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Very Good. Size: 6x1x9; 897 p., clean and unmarked anywhere on strong unaged paper; photos; binding tight; clean orange and white photogrphic wrapper has slight rubbing at edges.
Add this copy of Where Snowflakes Dance and Swear: Inside the Land of to cart. $30.01, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2012 by Cadwallader and Stern.
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