Dance Encounters
Leland Windreich Writing on Dance

Lee Windreich grew up on ballet and music in San Francisco. In the 1940s he feasted on the miraculous parade of dance companies as the ballet scene boomed bringing American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Caravan and the ubiquitous Ballet Russe troupes.

Ambitions as a dance writer were cooled by more practical concerns of livelihood and it would not be until Windreich moved to Vancouver that his passion met paper. His prolific writing hand has not stopped over the past four decades - producing over 300 published articles.

His major work emanated from the discovery of the Vancouver teacher June Roper who had produced a remarkable number of dancers in the late 1930s. A research grant allowed him to follow up on many of Roper's dancers - the result - a substantial and otherwise undocumented history of outstanding Vancouver dancers.

And there was more ... studies on the Australian Ringland Anderson's Ballet Russe films, Nana Gollner, George Balanchine, Léonide Masine, flowed on to paper. Travel provided grist for articles from Denmark, Russia, Czechoslavakia, Canada and the United States. James Kudelka, Jean Stoneham, Agnes de Mille and Karen Jamieson are subjects. Controversy doesn't escape - as a gladiator he enters the fray in "L'Affaire Patricia Neary and Ballet BC".

Dance Encounters is a mix of people and events - a cross section of the dance world - its greats, its warts and above all, the result of a passion for dance that Windreich has held for nearly seven decades of watching the intriguing parade.

About the Author
Leland Windreich is a Vancouver-based writer who has published in Canadian, American and British dance journals including Dance International, Dance Magazine and Ballet Review. His special interest encompasses the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes, particularly the Canadian dancers who performed with these companies.

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ISBN: 0-929003-30-6
Softcover, 6" x 9"
230 pp.
27 photographs
index