http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
xxviii, 554 pages, [12] pages of plates (some color) : illustrations ; 25 cm.
In Ruth Page: The Woman in the Work, the Chicago ballerina emerges as a highly original choreographer who, in her art, sought the iconoclastic as she transgressed boundaries of genre, gender, race, class and sexuality. Author Joellen A. Meglin shows how her works were often controversial and sometimes censored even as she succeeded in roles usually reserved for men in the ballet world, choreographer, artistic director and impresario. From extensive dramaturgical analysis of her most famous ballets, La Guiablesse, Frankie and Johnny, Billy Sunday, Revenge, The Merry Widow, Camille, Carmina Burana and Alice, to embodied reimagining of an avantgarde solo performed in a "sack" designed by Isamu Noguchi, this biography follows the global reach of Ruth Page's career spanning the greater part of the twentieth century. In the process of discovering the woman in the work, one encounters with an international cast of dancers (Anna Pavlova, Harald Kreutzberg, Frederic Franklin, Alicia Markova), composers (William Grant Still, Aaron Copland, Jerome Moross, Darius Milhaud), visual artists (Noguchi, Pavel Tchelitchew, Antoni Clavé) and companies (Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Ballets des Champs-Elysées, London Festival Ballet). Disrupting notions that New York was the only cradle of the American ballet, and George Balanchine, its exponent to eclipse all others, Ruth Page explores the woman's unique sensibility, corporeal praxis and collaborative ethos to reveal her Chicago-centered network of creativity.
Overture -- Part I. International stirrings. From Pavlovita to Première danseuse ; World travelers: Chicago Allied Arts and beyond ; "Gone modern": skyscrapers, sacks, and sticks ; A surprising partnership: Page/Kreutzberg -- Part II. Ballet Americana. White she-devil in an otherwise Black cast: La Guiablesse ; "Jungle jazz": a murder trial in ballet ; "Ghosts of Harlem": a blues ballet ; America's first feminist ballet: An American Pattern ; Embodying "lowlife" in high art: Frankie and Johnny ; Victory Garden: danced poems in the time of war ; Postwar anomie: The Bells ; Bible stories meet music hall: Billy Sunday -- Part III. Cosmopolitan choreographies. The remaking of the choreographer: Revenge and the European market ; A woman's will: The Merry Widow ; The woman who could not sleep ; Grand Finale.
Includes bibliographical references and index.