“BALLET GO ROUND”

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20693, 31 December 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

“BALLET GO ROUND”

BOOK BY ANTON DOLIN INSIGHT INTO TEMPERAMENT Lovers of the ballet will obtain a vivid insight into the temperament of j a dancer from “Ballet Go Round,” i written by Anton Dolin, principal male : dancer in the Covent Garden Ballet i now appearing in Sydney. | The hook is ‘the story of a typical ! dancer, full of naive enthusiasm and j telling the inside stories of little intrigues and disturbances that take place behind Hie scenes. Dolin himself belongs In the older generation nf dancers, who had to take pseudo-Russian names. Otherwise the Markova-Dolin Ballet might have been called Die Mnrks-Kay Ballet, for even ns .Miss .Marks became Alicia Markova, so did an Irish lad. Patrick Healey Kay. become Anton Dolin. His Favourite Ballet Readers will enjoy the author’s admiration of Spessiva, especially in “Gizelle,” which seems to be his favourite ballet. “Spessiva,’ he writes, “in the scene where she loses her reason, made not only me. but the whole company, cry. I can still hear Lopokova, who used to watch it from the wings, saying: ‘Oh, Pat, my dear, it is so beautiful. Never have I lived to cry so much.’ “It was quite a beautiful and refreshing side of ballet tife to watdi the great Lydia. She might have been any young, excited. enthusiastic student of the'dance as she watched and applauded each movement of Spessiva.” Wants Real Dancinf, 1 M. Dolin is classically-minded in his i attitude towards the ballet, and is j always pleading for more real dancing i and iess acrobatics. | He himself can perform many of a j ballerina’s tricks, he reveals. “Ever since 1 began to learn to ! dance I have been able to stand on | my toes without the slightest difficulty. | “But the adagios I used to do, and ! still do, were different. I have often ; thought of doing them in public, and j have been asked to do so by many people, but I keep them for my own pleasure and for those friends of mine who enjoy it and do not mind seeing a man dancing on his pointes. Tragic Characters Two of the most interesting chapters in the book deal with two tragic personalities of the theatre, the mad Nijinsky, whom Dolin failed to rouse from his long inertia, and Barbette, the extraordinary young man who wis one of the most famous female impersonator trapeze artists in the world until an accident ruined his career.