Dancing on My Grave

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

#AbbaInAugust #DancingQueen

The dark underbelly of the beauty and grace of ballet is laid bare in Gelsey Kirkland's autobiography

Cinfhen, Reviewsbylola, emilyhaldi, Mdargusch, Meredith3

Cathythoughts I love ballet ... but I‘d say the work that has to be done & the competition must be fierce. Very hard work.... but beautiful to watch 6y

CarolynM @Cathythoughts Oh, absolutely! They are as fit and strong as any athlete and then they have the artistry on top of that. It takes my breath away. And as for the competitiveness, oh boy! 6y

Mdargusch Interesting to think all of this was going on behind the scenes of a beautiful dancer. 6y

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emilyhaldi Sounds like a bit of a Black Swan situation 🖤 6y

ValerieAndBooks I‘ve read this, as did my ballet daughter. She took GK‘s eight-week summer intensive in NYC three years ago! 6y

Reviewsbylola 😬😬😬 sounds harrowing. 6y

CarolynM @ValerieAndBooks What a fabulous experience for her! I hope her life in ballet is more tranquil than GK's 6y

Meredith3 Wow sounds dark and great! 6y

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GidgetsTreasures75

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

7-20-18: My 28th finished book of 2018! Dancing on My Grave by my favorite ballerina, Gelsey Kirkland. You can see I received this book in 1989 from my dad. It‘s a sad, cautionary tale of one dancer‘s struggle with depression and drug addiction. I first read it in 7th grade and, I guess, it scared me enough to not fall prey to some of her struggles. 👍🏼📖#️⃣2️⃣8️⃣

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GidgetsTreasures75

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

7-16-18: Beach reading!☀️📖💖

5 likes

Sace

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

Well here's a lovely dance book for today's #onedance prompt for #heatofjuly sponsored by @Cinfhen and @BarbaraBB. Actually it's all about Gelsey Kirkland's time as a dancer with George Balanchine. There's eating disorders, insecurity, love and drugs. Maybe one day I'll actually read this.🙄

Bookcation74 I must have read this one 3 or 4 times as a teenager!! I still have this same copy! 💕 6y

Cinfhen Book sounds scandalous ~ I‘m intrigued 6y

Sace @Bookcation74 Gelsey Kirkland was *THE* dancer when I was a girl. 6y

Sace @Cinfhen I think I've been putting it off because I'm not sure I want to face the seedy underbelly of the dance world 😂 6y

Lola This is is REALLY good. I wish I still had my copy-I bought the hardcover the day it cake out-GK was my idol when I was a young ballet dancer. 6y

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GidgetsTreasures75

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

10-8-17: Day 8: Books Loved as a Teen. I think I was a weird kid! Some of his subject matter is intense! #bookriot #riotgram #Bookslovedasateen #goddessthesecretlivesofmarilynmonroe #valleyofthedolls which is my mom's first addition copy!! #theneverendingstory which you can see has tape on the spine! #dancingonmygrave I was a ballet dancer #goaskalice which is from my elementary school, I never brought it back! #mermaids one of my fave movies!

DivaDiane Oh! Go ask Alice!! I forgot that one! But it did make a huge impression on me. 7y

GidgetsTreasures75 @DivaDiane Me too! I read it so many times. There is a terrible TV movie based on the book. I believe I watched it on YouTube. It's worth a glance. 7y

8 likes2 comments

Jinjer

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

pan

Soooooooo boring. Waaaaay too much detail about each & every ballet. Too many pages spent trying to make Baryshnikov look bad. Way too much crying and hysterics.

JazzFeathers 😕Bummer. I always find ballet so fascinating. But this doesn't sound like it is... 7y

29 likes1 comment

balletbookworm

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

These are not properly biographies, but I find that I read more memoirs than anything else. Gelsey captures both the light and the dark sides of ballet, more dark in the first, more light in the second. Her textual work translated into the choreography when rehearsing Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet is exquisite. #fridayfunphoto

(I'll rummage a bit and see if I can't find a proper biography)

Liberty

LeahBergen I have her first one but haven't read it yet. I'm crazy about dance memoirs. 😀 8y

balletbookworm @LeahBergen it is so sad in places, how awful she is made to feel about her body, and the drug culture. Yikes! 8y

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bookishkai

Dancing on My Grave | Greg Lawrence, Gelsey Kirkland

#FunFridayPhoto my dad gave me this for my 10th Chrustmas. He was well meaning, and yes, a ballet bio was awesome. But. I don't think he realized how much sex, drugs, alcohol were a part of the story. On some level it scared the crap out of me, but it also gave me a glimpse of the not-pretty side of ballet that turned out to be a good thing. And yes, my ten year old self with her college-level reading skills read every single sordid page.

BarbaraTheBibliophage I remember reading this one and being appalled. I wasn't a kid at the time. Still, it was intense. 8y

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