Books and Art

Tonia Looker in Satisfied with Great Success. Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2011. Photo by Ross Brown.

Radiating mystery and beauty, SWGS gives modern immediacy to classical ballet. Making its debut this season, the work is choreographed by expat Kiwi Cameron McMillan, and features costumes by renowned designer Karen Walker. Taking his cue from the ravishing score, McMillan’s ballet unfolds in a series of electrically-charged scenes played out before 50-year-old film footage of Stravinsky in New Zealand.

Georgia May Jagger’s tower of books.

Chanel girl Jagger takes after her father Mick in Vogue China July 2010’s Like A Rolling Stone. Lensed by Max Vadukul in a healthy dose of knits, plaids and stockings, the studio editorial features a spot of color with Nicoletta Santoro’s impeccable styling.

Coeds reading and socializing. LIFE. Nina Leen, c.1950.

Leen reported  a surprising amount of insight into the post WW II period. Housewives, students, working girls, fashion, Upper East Side socialites, glamorous women, mannequins.  Her work has been an interesting study on femininity,and photojournalism.

Allison DeBona in Emeralds by George Balanchine.

DeBona joined Ballet West in 2007 and was promoted to Demi-Soloist in 2011. She trained at the Parou Ballet Company under Debbie Parou, followed by the Pittsburgh Youth Ballet under Jean Gedeon. 

Young Dolly Parton sitting with a guitar writing a song. 1960s.

Parton wrote every day, and had more than a 100 songs at her disposal. A multi-instrumentalist, Parton was more than equipped to accompany herself. She wrote the traditional country songs about cheating, but there was also the feminist anthem “Just Because I’m a Woman,” which proclaimed “My mistakes are no worse than yours, just because I’m a woman.” 

Kate Winslet reads as Ophelia in Hamlet (1996).

Hamlet, son of the king of Denmark, is summoned home for his father’s funeral and his mother’s wedding to his uncle. In a supernatural episode, he discovers that his uncle, whom he hates anyway, murdered his father. In a convoluted plot…

Ekaterina Kondaurova in The Firebird. © Natasha Razina. The Mariinsky Ballet. Kennedy Center Opera House. January 2012.

Kondaurova was her own spectacular show, dancing with a trademark precision, intensity, and ardor. Watching her darting across the stage was a blissful thrill. She captured the essence of her role – a bold and free spirit, inspiring and energizing the entire cast.

Humphrey Bogart reading the book upon which the film Dark Passage (1947) was based.

Bogart is an escaped convict, wrongly accused of his wife’s murder. After being forced to beat up a man (Clifton Young) from whom he’s hitched a ride, Bogart hides out in the apartment of Lauren Bacall, while recovering from plastic surgery, and tries to set about locating the actual murderer. 

Abbie Cornish reading poetry as Fanny Brawne in  Bright Star (2009). The film’s title is a reference to a sonnet by John Keats with first line “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” which he wrote while he was with Brawne.

The film is an affecting and deeply considered study of the last years in the short life of Keats, and the ecstasy of loss which suffuses his love affair with Brawne – a love thwarted not due to illness, but to a pernicious web of money worries, social scruples and irrelevant male loyalties.

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell read and sing on the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Accompanied by Gilbert Roland at the piano.

Lorelei and Dorothy are just “Two Little Girls from Little Rock,” lounge singers on a transatlantic cruise, working their way to Paris, and enjoying the company of any eligible men they might meet along the way, even though “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”

Delia Mathews as Winter in Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of Cinderella. Photograph by Bill Cooper. 2009.

‘Then there are the Seasons, which are challenging solos full of difficult steps. They’re deliberately difficult, I didn’t want to make them easy…But I’ve also cast Artists like Yvette [Knight] and Kristen [McGarrity] and Delia [Mathews], all of whom I wanted to challenge. And they’ve responded brilliantly.’ — David Bintley, Choreographer and Director. 

Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish reading. Orphans of the Storm (1921).

Henriette and Louise, a foundling, are raised together as sisters. When Louise goes blind, Henriette swears to take care of her forever. They go to Paris to see if Louise’s blindness can be cured, but are separated when an aristocrat lusts after Henriette and abducts her…

Wonderland. Kirsty Mitchell (English, 1976-). Featured on the cover and inside Lithuanian magazine ‘Psichologlia Tau’ Jan 2013.

“…My earliest memories were always of the stories read to me by my mother…She instilled in me the most precious gift a mother could, her imagination and a belief in beauty…It became my root, and the place I constantly try to return to in my work, and my dreams…”

Lucia Lacarra as Ariel in “Der Sturm.”  Photograph by Charles Tandy. Bayerisches Staatsballettballet.

Der Sturm (The Tempest) tells the story of Prospero who loses his crown to his scheming brother, Antonio. Cast out to die at sea, Prospero and his daughter Miranda are saved when their ship washes ashore on an enchanted island. With the help of two island inhabitants, the spirit Ariel and the savage Caliban, Prospero soon establishes a new kingdom.

Gifted student interrupted while reading Famous Cats.

A public “genius school” for 3-to-11-year-olds at New York’s Hunter College, 1948. Photograph by Nina Leen. LIFE.

“The school they go to is P.S. 600, part of New York’s public-school system and the only institution in the U.S. devoted entirely to the teaching and study of gifted children…”