Shadowplay: The Life of Antony Tudor

Antony Tudor was the creator of the psychological ballet: his haunting and dramatic dances, among them "Dark Elegies", "Pillar of Fire", "Jardin aux Lilas" and "Shadowplay" helped break the mould of classical ballet. Born to a poor East End family, Tudor turned away from the fables and abstractions of other choreographers to plumb his own ambivalence about himself and his often turbulent personal relationships. In this biography, the author illuminates Tudor's struggles with the greatest figures in 20th-century dance - DeMille, Robbins, Nureyev, Balanchine, Ashton, Kirkland and others - and his longtime romance with dancer Hugh Laning and their menage-a-trois with ballerina Diane Adams. She also explores and explains the dances themselves.