Summoning My Inner Ballerina
Summoning My Inner Ballerina

Author: Paula Mack Smith

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2012-09-21

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781475949728

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This is an exceptional memoir. Paula shares details of a life fully lived. As in each and every life, there are ups and downs. The key is to find a way to get through each chapter, each hurdle, and each experience whether positive or negative. Paula shares her special way of getting through them. As a young girl, Paula took ballet lessons. At her recital, a photo is taken of her in all of her glory. It is the only childhood picture of her by herself, without siblings. This picture epitomizes the Inner Ballerina of Paula, her inner beauty, poise, strength, and confidence. While we each do not have an Inner Ballerina, we do each find a way to cope when necessary. It is calling upon this inner self that allows Paula to cope with the many things she must face throughout her life. From a tragic fire, cancer of first herself then her husband, a serious illness of a child, to many other life experiences, Paula calls upon her Inner Ballerina. Paula writes with heart and with humour. I love this memoir and admire Paula for her strength and honesty.

My Inner Ballerina
My Inner Ballerina

Author: Paula Mack Smith

Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing

Published: 2015-10-15

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1457541815

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In a follow-up to her 2012 memoir, "Summoning My Inner Ballerina: Balancing Love and Loss, Family and Friends, Life and Politics," author Paula Mack Smith explores her rocky journey as she navigates through the deaths of two of her closest family members. The first was the unexpected death of her brother Warren, just a few months after the publication of her memoir. The second was that of her older son, Michael, six months later. Both deaths left her floundering in her grief, the ballerina temporarily toppled, heart-broken and spent. It was only through writing and sharing her memories and stories in black and white that she could begin to come to terms with those tragedies and regain a semblance of her former optimism. By learning to concentrate on "what remains" instead of what was lost, the little ballerina found her will to continue onward. By sharing her painful journey, the author hopes to help others do likewise. To see that there is, after all, light at the end of the tunnel and joy following terrible losses.

Being a Ballerina
Being a Ballerina

Author: Gavin Larsen

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2021-04-27

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 081306595X

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Finalist, the Arts Club of Washington Marfield Prize A look inside a dancer’s world Inspiring, revealing, and deeply relatable, Being a Ballerina is a firsthand look at the realities of life as a professional ballet dancer. Through episodes from her own career, Gavin Larsen describes the forces that drive a person to study dance; the daily balance that dancers navigate between hardship and joy; and the dancer’s continual quest to discover who they are as a person and as an artist. Starting with her arrival as a young beginner at a class too advanced for her, Larsen tells how the embarrassing mistake ended up helping her learn quickly and advance rapidly. In other stories of her early teachers, training, and auditions, she explains how she gradually came to understand and achieve what she and her body were capable of. Larsen then re-creates scenes from her experiences in dance companies, from unglamorous roles to exhilarating performances. Working as a ballerina was shocking and scary at first, she says, recalling unexpected injuries, leaps of faith, and her constant struggle to operate at the level she wanted—but full of enormously rewarding moments. Larsen also reflects candidly on her difficult decision to retire at age 35. An ideal read for aspiring dancers, Larsen’s memoir will also delight experienced dance professionals and fascinate anyone who wonders what it takes to live a life dedicated to the perfection of the art form.

Apollo's Angels
Apollo's Angels

Author: Jennifer Homans

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-11-02

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 0679603905

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully told, Apollo’s Angels—the first cultural history of ballet ever written—is a groundbreaking work. From ballet’s origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France’s Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. In the twentieth century, émigré dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance. Jennifer Homans, a historian, critic, and former professional ballerina, wields a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. Her admiration and love for the ballet, as Entertainment Weekly notes, brings “a dancer’s grace and sure-footed agility to the page.”

Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Published: 2011-09-27

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0316192147

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The first book in the New York Times bestselling epic fantasy trilogy by award-winning author Laini Taylor Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out. When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Exhausting Dance
Exhausting Dance

Author: Andre Lepecki

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-07-13

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1134230893

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The only scholarly book in English dedicated to recent European contemporary dance, Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement examines the work of key contemporary choreographers who have transformed the dance scene since the early 1990s in Europe and the US. Through their vivid and explicit dialogue with performance art, visual arts and critical theory from the past thirty years, this new generation of choreographers challenge our understanding of dance by exhausting the concept of movement. Their work demands to be read as performed extensions of the radical politics implied in performance art, in post-structuralist and critical theory, in post-colonial theory, and in critical race studies. In this far-ranging and exceptional study, Andre Lepecki brilliantly analyzes the work of the choreographers: * Jerome Bel (France) * Juan Dominguez (Spain) * Trisha Brown (US) * La Ribot (Spain) * Xavier Le Roy (France-Germany) * Vera Mantero (Portugal) and visual and performance artists: * Bruce Nauman (US) * William Pope.L (US). This book offers a significant and radical revision of the way we think about dance, arguing for the necessity of a renewed engagement between dance studies and experimental artistic and philosophical practices.

Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual

Author: Lesa Snider

Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

Published: 2013-06-24

Total Pages: 1390

ISBN-13: 144934237X

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Photoshop CC is truly amazing, but it can also be overwhelming if you’re just getting started. This book makes learning Photoshop as easy as possible by explaining things in a friendly, conversational style—without technical jargon. After a thorough introduction to the program, you’ll delve deep into Photoshop’s secrets with expert tips and practical editing advice you can use every day. The important stuff you need to know: Learn your way around. Take a tour of Photoshop’s workspace and learn how to customize it. Unlock the magic. Use layers, masks, and Smart Objects to safely edit your images. Perfect your photos. Learn techniques for cropping, color-correcting, retouching, and combining photos. Master color. Drain, change, and add color; create gorgeous black-and-whites, partial-color effects, and duotones. Be artistic. Create illustrations, paintings, and pro-level text; use filters effectively, edit video, and create 3D art. Share your work. Produce great-looking images for print, presentations, and the Web. Work smarter and faster. Automate common chores and install plug-ins for complex tasks.

The Mind of a Mnemonist
The Mind of a Mnemonist

Author: Aleksandr Romanovich Lurii͡a

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780674576223

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A welcome re-issue of an English translation of Alexander Luria's famous case-history of hypermnestic man. The study remains the classic paradigm of what Luria called 'romantic science,' a genre characterized by individual portraiture based on an assessment of operative psychological processes. The opening section analyses in some detail the subject's extraordinary capacity for recall and demonstrates the association between the persistence of iconic memory and a highly developed synaesthesia. The remainder of the book deals with the subject's construction of the world, his mental strengths and weaknesses, his control of behaviour and his personality. The result is a contribution to literature as well as to science. (Psychological Medicine ).