{"id":9453,"date":"2023-08-22T10:58:12","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T16:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=9453"},"modified":"2023-12-09T12:59:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T18:59:30","slug":"dancing-through-childhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/9453\/dancing-through-childhood","title":{"rendered":"Dancing Through Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Library<\/a>\n

[As a Library Thing Early Reviewer I’m in the running to be sent books in exchange for a review. It’s a bit of a lottery \u2013 you choose books from scores offered each month, and maybe one shows up, or not. This one did.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Though there are variations, the basic arabesque, said to be one of the most graceful of all ballet positions, requires the dancer to support one\u2019s body weight on one leg, while the other is extended in back with the knee straight.<\/p>\n

\"Boal\"<\/a>On a warm afternoon in late May, 2015, my wife and I took our young granddaughters, budding dancers, to see a performance of the New York City Ballet. While waiting outside the theater in the cooling mists of the Lincoln Center fountain, we met two older women, one of whom said to the girls, \u201cYou look like dancers.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were off and conversing. Turned out both of the women had danced in the chorus of the New York City Ballet. I mentioned that we knew the mother of a dancer who had performed with the company, who now was the artistic director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter Boal?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Peter Boal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wasn\u2019t just a dancer. He was a principal! He was amazing! It was always said that he had the best arabesque of anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

One Village Voice<\/em> review of a Boal performance cited, \u201c\u2026 the Apollonian elegance and good taste that inform his dancing, as well as with the verve and drama he brings to roles in Balanchine\u2019s Prodigal Son<\/em> and the \u201cRubies\u201d section of Jewels<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find no such boasting in Boal\u2019s memoir, Illusions of Camelot<\/em> (Beaufort Books, $24.95), and surprisingly, not a great deal about his career at all, which may come as a disappointment for those expecting more ballet, and less about Boal\u2019s childhood in the wealthy enclave of Bedford, New York.<\/p>\n

But there are key moments. Though Boal was indifferent to the few performances he attended in his earliest years, he was nine when, he writes, \u201cDuring a performance of Coppelia<\/em>, in the middle of the villagers\u2019 romp, I suddenly realized I wanted to try ballet lessons. I tugged on my mom\u2019s sleeve and whispered, \u201cI want to try that.\u201d \u00b6\u201cTry what?\u201d \u00b6\u201dBallet. Can I try ballet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The young ballet master<\/p><\/div>\n

He did, and progressed rapidly, appearing in a production of The Nutcracker<\/em> later that year. By age 14 he was living on his own in New York City, studying at the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center and performing regularly. In various portions of the book well-known names from the ballet world are dropped, albeit with restraint, and there\u2019s an incisive chapter about a visit to George Balanchine in the hospital shortly before the ballet master\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The grief over Balanchine is mirrored by other losses in the book; there\u2019s also the death from AIDS of John Bass, a fellow dancer from the NYCB company, whom Boal was in a relationship with (though he has now been in a 30-plus-year marriage with Kelly Cass Boal, with three children).<\/p>\n

And Boal keeps sounding the leitmotif of his family\u2019s constant grappling with his father\u2019s alcoholism, an ongoing struggle that was, in the end, doomed.<\/p>\n

Lest this sound overly lugubrious, it should be noted that there\u2019s a great deal of humor in the book, as it\u2019s largely about Boal\u2019s younger years, and the typical shenanigans and excesses of youth. If taking place in the privileged environs of Bedford and in its private school, horse-riding stable and country club, Boal is convincing enough that it was decidedly not Camelot.<\/p>\n

\"Boal<\/a>

Boal in a production of “The Nutcracker”<\/p><\/div>\n

So there are incidents of bullying (by twin girls), bad actors in grade school, teen parties where the drinking gets out of hand, disastrous family meals, unruly dogs and truculent neighbors, related in prose rich in detail and dialogue (though Boal cheerfully admits that, \u201c\u2026 some dialogue has been recreated using the author\u2019s best recollections\u201d).<\/p>\n

As mentioned, his mother, Lyndall, a scion of England\u2019s Cadbury chocolate company, is a friend, and I\u2019m happy to say she comes off as stalwart. As do housekeeper Vivian Wilson and nanny Mrs. Hattie (Lindsay), clearly women indelible in Boal\u2019s upbringing and warmly captured here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese memories were pieced together like a mosaic,\u201d writes the author. The short chapters certainly stand on their own and add up to a comprehensive whole, though there are disjunctions of chronology that will keep readers on their toes. But in a book by a ballet master, that seems apt enough.<\/p>\n

[August 22, 2023]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[As a Library Thing Early Reviewer I’m in the running to be sent books in exchange for a review. It’s… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":9456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[670,100586,18],"tags":[1035505,1035516,1035506,1035517,1035507,251742,1035509,1035510,817,1035511,2413,1035512,1035513,2207,1035514,1035504,1035515],"class_list":["post-9453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rummaging-around-in-the-bag","category-the-bookshelf","category-lifestyle","tag-lyndall-boal","tag-dance","tag-new-york-city-ballet","tag-school-of-american-ballet","tag-illusions-of-camelot","tag-bedford","tag-alcoholism","tag-george-balanchine","tag-new-york","tag-john-bass","tag-seattle","tag-kelly-cass-boal","tag-lincoln-center","tag-washington","tag-pacific-northwest-ballet","tag-peter-boal","tag-ballet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/08\/Boal-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9453"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9463,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9453\/revisions\/9463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}