Goldenrod Meadow Walk

Wed., May 28 at 6 to 7
Meet at pool

I am making my way through the Nureyev biography by Julie Kavanaugh. Vera recommended it so highly and I can see why. It was insightful how one of the critics of the book said something like that Kavanaugh writes as if she is a mother who totally loves her child while acknowledging the child has flaws.

http://www.amazon.com/Nureyev-Life-Julie-Kavanagh/dp/0375405135/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211669456&sr=8-1

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The first international ballet superstar, Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993) made headlines when he defected from Russia in 1961. His onstage partnership with the Royal Ballet's ballerina assoluta Margot Fonteyn received legendary acclaim.

Formerly a Kirov star, trained by the famed ballet teacher Alexander Pushkin and inspired by Nijinsky and Stanislavsky, he shocked and seduced the West with his charismatic stage presence and his passionate, sometimes rough-edged dancing.

British ballet critic Kavanagh (Secret Muses: The Life of Frederick Ashton) captures his phenomenal work ethic, his hunger for new dance experiences (with Jerome Robbins, Martha Graham and Paul Taylor) and his flamboyant life.

Her writing style is both readable and sophisticated, showing Nureyev's wit and generosity alongside his carelessness and cruelty. She dissects ballet arcana like the Bournonville and Vaganova techniques—but doesn't stint on celebrity dish.

Nureyev's affair with the celebrated Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, his desperate need to dance for George Balanchine and his competition with the younger ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov are detailed, alongside his relationships with Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger. Kavanagh presents a definitive and moving portrait of one of the 20th century's most hypnotic, ruthless and hedonistic artists.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Julie Kavanagh knows the dance world, and it shows. The London-based journalist and former ballerina previously wrote a prize-winning biography of choreographer Frederick Ashton, and she fills Nureyev: The Life with piercing insights into both the life of her subject and the turbulent world of professional ballet.

Critics loved her riveting storytelling, and though the Christian Science Monitor complained that Kavanagh dwells too long on the dancer’s experiences in the "brutal anonymity of 70s gay culture" and his passing from AIDS, they generally praised her refusal to sugarcoat any aspect of Nureyev’s life and personality.

Overall, Kavanagh offers a compelling portrait of a complicated man in the tone of "a mother who knows her child’s faults all too well and yet looks upon him with affection" (San Francisco Chronicle).