BOOKS
by
Adam Darius
A Nomadic Life
When Your Dog Dies
Double Existence
Audition Monologues
The Commedia Dell' Arte
Acting
Adam Darius Method
Dance Naked In The Sun
The Way To Timbuktu
The Guru
The Man Who Spat At Fate
SAMPLE PAGES
Double Existence: Sample pages
Audition Monologues: Sample pages
Commedia Dell' Arte: Sample pages
Acting: Sample pages
Adam Darius Method: Sample pages
The Guru: Sample pages
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To be published 17th December, 2007
ARABESQUES THROUGH TIME
a life in ballet through three centuries
Arabesques Through Time: Reviews
SUMMARY
In Arabesques Through Time, by Adam Darius, the author takes the reader
on a personal journey through three centuries of dance; from his training
with the 19th century ballerina Olga Preobrajenska, to his friendships
with Irina Baronova, Ram Gopal and José Greco, to his conversations
with Dame Beryl Grey, Faroukh Ruzimatov, Monica Mason and Alina Cojocaru.
Further dance legends encountered by Adam Darius are Ruth St. Denis, Martha
Graham, Serge Lifar, Kurt Jooss and Assaf Messerer. Within these pages,
Adam Darius articulates his own devotional approach to the barre, as well
as clarifying the principal roles in Petrouchka, a veritable master class
in dramatic dance.
As for the chapter, Homosexuality and the Male Dancer, it is, within
its historical embrace, unprecedented in dance literature.
Eloquently and insightfully written, Arabesques Through Time captures
not only the lofty beauty of the ballet world, but also its intrigue, pain
and passion.
INTRODUCTION
by Adam Darius
Why do people write autobiographies? What are the motives behind the
rash desire to expose one's life to absolute strangers? What possesses
anyone to dredge up the banished, but not yet vanished, ghosts of the past?
There are many factors, especially among retired politicians, such as settling
scores, carrying a vendetta to public conclusion, self-justification for
one's actions, and the desire to be included among history's remembered
leaders. As for the dime-a-dozen show business mediocrities, whose books
have been penned by hired writers, the impetus is primarily the need to
stay centred in the roving limelight.
Finally, there is another motivation, perhaps the most powerful of all.
That is, by recording the events of one's life, one attempts to arrest
unstoppable time in its tracks. By trying to freeze all the yesterdays
within a book, the writer attempts to prevent the past from being airbrushed
by the present. For, above all, man has a terror of extinction, and by
the setting down in words of one's passing life, an urgent act of preservation
has taken place. The writer, in his mind, if not in actuality, has extended
his stay on Earth.
By writing an autobiography, he has proven that he was here, that he
once existed. Thus, his fear of obliteration has made him stake his claim
beyond the biblical allotment, allowing him to vent his longings for the
permanent and eternal. And always he is in a hurry, for he fears interruption
before being encased in the endless and airless vault of night. In the
creative act of writing his story, he has begun his dance of the seven
veils. And with each discarded strip of cloth, he lays further bare his
soul and, in so doing, further defies the ultimate enemy, death. In 1954,
at the age of 24, on tour with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, while others
were sleeping, I was staring through a train window at the interminable
stretches of uninhabited central Canada, dotted every few hundred miles
with an occasional and isolated farm house. A wave of melancholic sadness
washed over me as the train raced its way through the vast and utter loneliness
of the prairie night. A few days later, I wrote a poem called The Marathon,
included in my later book, The Way To Timbuktu. Yes, I realized then, and,
afterwards, again and again: for those who wish to relish existence at
its most intense, life is a race against the ultimate stalker, time.
For compulsive creators, artistic, medical or scientific, early encouragement
is not always the catalyst. Sometimes, it is the reverse, discouragement,
that acts as the prime mover. For he who is ignored is fired with the need
to dispel the doubters, to prove to a sneering world that he will not be
buried in the rubble of anonymity. Unhappily, our society has a way of
desensitizing the sensitive. As for those who wish to devote their lives
to the dance, they have taken on formidable opponents - time, imperfect
bodies, injuries, injustice, and ferocious competition. But none of those
obstacles deter the obsessed, for to dance is to live on a lofty pinnacle,
the Earth still in view, but the heavens more visible and in closer, if
deceptive, reach.
In Arabesques Through Time, the focus is on the outstanding dance personalities
who influenced my life, some born in the last third of the19th century,
straight through to the beginning of our present 21st. As any ballet lover
knows, there is no art form more evanescent than the will-of-the-wisp flight
of the dancer. If, in the following pages, I have succeeded in preserving
images of past and present great dance artists, then it is my reciprocal
offering for the inspiration they infused in a boy who once hungered, unabated,
to enter their world. That boy, to this day, continues on his journey,
his mission, from the distant Amazon to the Nile.
In concluding this Introduction, how does one define supreme artists
of the dance? For me, they are the resonant voices of unspoken verse, the
haiku poets of truth in movement. Artists at the pinnacle encapsulate both
bitter and sweet experience into bursts of pure and healing light.
HOW TO ORDER
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Hardcover, over 400 pages
including over 200 photographs
ISBN 951-98232-4-7
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