Dancing on My Grave

Rating:
Summary: An awseome book; Kirkland drags you down with her!!!
Review: Kirkland did a wonderful job interpreting her life of a dancer. She starts of with her childhood, telling you about her dad and family life. She goes on to tell us how she became a Balanchine Ballerina, and left him to dance with Baryshnkov. Kirkland also tells us about her many lovers, how she became a druggie and recovered. She did such a good job writing this, I couldn't stop reading it. I felt as if she might have. I would recomend this book to anyone, dancer or doctor or anyone!!!!

Rating:
Summary: sooo true!
Review: Kirkland does a wonderful job of showing the not so fairy-tale aspects of the world of ballet. Her life captivates the insecurities and anxieties all dancers have (not all to such an extreme). While non-dancers will most likely find her whiny and self-centered this is the torment of the life of an artist. Ballet (and art in general) requires such a high level of personal awareness that narcissism can easily result. I think dancers will completely empathize with Kirkland and find bits of themselves in her. For a true understanding of the life of an artist this book is great.

Rating:
Summary: Great insight!
Review: Kirkland gives us not only a wonderful look into her psyche but great insight into the ballet world. Her discussion of her body image problems and the turmoil they give her physically and mentally is intriguing and her stories of what it's really like to be a ballerina make the book a great read for dancer and non-dancers alike!

Rating:
Summary: I found the author to be narcissistic and self-centered.
Review: Kirkland's book includes a great deal of valid criticism of the ballet world; its recent emphasis on athleticism over artistry, the lack of real power demostrated by women and the change in desired body type from slender to anorexic. However, Kirkland comes across as self-centered, snobbish and shows no ability to take responsibility for her own problems (she derides ballet administrators and choregraphers both for treating its dancers and children and not saving her from herself). A little cheese with that whine, Gels?

Rating:
Summary: The truth will set you free
Review: Never have I picked up a book and been completely pulverized with such honesty about the dance world, a world I was part of for 12 years. I have recently reread this book for the 13th time. I can't count the number of passages where I felt exactly the same way about a director, a costumer, a choreographer. I thought I was alone with these impressions. Her words provide great comfort when I remember my own experiences.
Many of her assertions regarding the idolatry of Balanchine and Baryshnikov vs. who they might have been underneath their "genius" touches on one simple fact: they were still human, and thus, flawed. Dance, which dies instantly, is supposedly ethereal and perfectionistic. In reality, it is a punishing art, and takes much mental and emotional focus to deal with the fleeting splendor one achieves while onstage. Her unflinching honesty, revealed from the eye of the studio and not so much the stage, came from a great struggle throughout her parents' uneasy marriage, her alcoholic father, and the struggles of anorexia and drug addiction, appears in passage after passage. When you have delved through the lower depths, you find the words to articulate the feelings all these previous things have denied. It's as if all the physical anguish finally pushed the right words out to describe her experience. I'm sure she made more than a few enemies by revealing all, but in the end, we all have to live with ourselves. We may never know another person as intimately as we know ourselves. She wished to please everyone by being something other than herself. In the end, to paraphrase from her book, she found who she was by seeing what she was not. Out of all the Balanchine dancers who've written autobiographies, Gelsey's and Toni Bentley's "Winter Season" stand out. Both of these dancers seek the truth, and with this, they found themselves. An excellent, stunning read. I adore this book.

Rating:
Summary: This touched my heart
Review: No other autobiography I have read has ever been this powerful. I was pulled into Gelsey's heart and felt her pain. She is probably the most beautiful and amazing dancer that ever was in America. Yet she did not feel beautiful. I could relate to all of Gelsey's struggles and emotional hardships. I recommend this book to all those who enjoy autobiographies, all who enjoy ballet, and especially to those who wish to become dancers. It gives a truly realistic view into the dance world. Will become a favourite. Other books to read; Holding Onto the Air by Suzanne Farrell, The Shape of Love (which is the continuing book to Dancing on My Grave) by Gelsey Kirkland and Greg Lawrence.

Rating:
Summary: Magical, enthralling...
Review: One of the best autobiographies written by *anyone* let alone a dancer. I was sucked in from the first page and I felt as if i experienced everything she did, right up until the last page when I was finally released from the book's chilling hold...

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and beautiful.
Review: These words apply to both her and the book. One of the most moving autobiographies I've read in my life. As I believe the other reviewers have eloquently expressed all I need to say concerning this book, any more words will be doing an injustice to the work.

Rating:
Summary: If you want to study a clinical Narcissist, Gelsey's it
Review: This biography could be the study of a clinical narcissist. Kirkland expounds on her adventures in plastic surgery (silicone lips and breasts), drug abuse, anorexia and promiscuity. Finally, she finds love in the arms of a fellow cocaine addict, who sounds like (and resembles) Norman Bates with literary pretensions. I felt sorry for the other people who had to come in contact with this self-obsessed prima donna on speed.

Rating:
Summary: Definately a worthy use of time to read this book.
Review: This book was wonderful, and gave me a deep admiration for Ms. Krikland, as well as a new way to look at theme in life. Her descriptions and observations are vivid and insightful, and, if you read her continuation, "The Shape of Love," you will be even more impressed. I read this book when I was 16 and it was a turning point in my life. It helped me to recognise theme in my life, and though I have never had drug or any other kind of addiciton, I was inspired by her ability to overcome it and go on to another stage of her life.