The Boy from Kyiv

Alexei Ratmansky's Life in Ballet

by Marina Harss

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Pub Date Oct 03 2023 | Archive Date Oct 31 2023

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Description

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The New Yorker

The Boy from Kyiv is the life story of Alexei Ratmansky, the most celebrated ballet choreographer of our time.

“[A] spirited, engaging biography . . . Ms. Harss analyzes each of Mr. Ratmansky’s ballets, skillfully describing them in such vivid detail that you can almost see them . . . A deeply researched portrait.” —Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

Alexei Ratmansky is transforming ballet for the twenty-first century. An artist of daring imagination, the choreographer has created breathtakingly original works for the world’s most revered companies. He has fashioned a singular approach to balletic storytelling that bridges the space between narrative and abstraction and heightens ambiguity and surprise on the stage. He has boldly restored great centuries-old ballets to their former glory, combining archival research with his own choreographic genius to retrieve detail and color once lost to the ages. And above all, he is renowned for fusing the Western and Eastern ballet traditions, and for drawing on the visual arts, literature, music, film, and beyond with inspired vim, to forge a style that is vibrant, eclectic, and utterly new: one that promises to leave an indelible mark on this venerable art form.

But before Ratmansky was the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, the resident choreographer at American Ballet Theatre, the artist in residence at New York City Ballet, and generally, as The New Yorker has it, “the most sought-after man in ballet,” he was just a boy from Kyiv, sneaking into the ballet at night, concocting his own juvenile adaptations of novels and stories, and dreaming up new possibilities for bodies in motion.

In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this groundbreaking artist, the celebrated dance writer Marina Harss takes us behind the curtain to reveal Ratmansky’s fascinating life, from his Soviet boyhood through his globe-spanning career. Over a decade in the making, this biography arrives at a pivotal moment in Ratmansky’s journey, one that has seen him painfully and publicly break ties with Russia, the country in which he made his name, in solidarity with his native Ukraine, and take on a new challenge at the storied New York City Ballet. Told with the lyricism, drama, and verve that befit its subject, The Boy from Kyiv is a riveting account of this major artist’s ascent to the peaks of his field, a mesmerizing study of creativity in action, and a triumphant testament to ballet’s enduring vitality.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The New Yorker

The Boy from Kyiv is the life story of Alexei Ratmansky, the most celebrated ballet choreographer of our time.

“[A] spirited, engaging biography...

A Note From the Publisher

Marina Harss is a dance writer, journalist, and critic based in New York City. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Nation, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Dance Magazine, and Fjord Review. She is the author of The Boy from Kyiv.

Advance Praise

“[Marina] Harss makes a lively book debut with an appreciative, richly detailed, generously illustrated biography of dancer and choreographer Alexei Ratmansky . . . A delightful gift for ballet fans.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[An] impressively detailed debut . . . It’s a pleasure to follow Ratmansky’s career, which is brought to life by Harss’s deep research. Dance aficionados will delight in this vibrant portrait.” —Publishers Weekly

★ “An appreciative, carefully researched biography . . . Anyone worried that ‘ballet is dead’ need look no further than the story of this acclaimed and accomplished artist.” —Carolyn Mulac, Booklist (starred review)

“In my time at American Ballet Theatre, I have worked closely with Alexei Ratmansky on countless ballets, and his artistry and imagination have been a source of great inspiration. Now, reading Marina Harss’s illuminating new biography, I have deeper understanding and appreciation of the artist and how his personal story has helped to form his artistic identity.” —Misty Copeland, principal dancer, American Ballet Theatre

“In this elegant, authoritative biography of one of the great choreographers of our time, Marina Harss captures Alexei Ratmansky in all his passionate complexity: he appears at once Ukrainian and Russian, Easterner and Westerner, iconoclast and restorer, modernist and populist. Harss shows how a major artist can not only withstand the contradictions of twenty-first century identity but thrive on them. Most important, she brings the dances to riveting life on the page, evoking history in motion.” —Alex Ross, author of Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music

“Marina Harss has written a big, thorough trip through Alexei Ratmansky’s life . . . so far. Ratmansky’s is a rare talent, well represented in Ms. Harss’ book which, like its subject, is rarely still for long, ever pushing onward. Generously detailed and engaging, The Boy from Kyiv is a welcome story arriving at a critical moment for Ukraine, for the world, for ballet and the performing arts in general.” —Mark Morris, choreographer

“Harss’s hero is ballet’s hero. Ratmansky has singlehandedly transformed the art worldwide, and he is now, at the height of his powers, seeking to rescue Ukrainian culture from the Russia that gave him so much yet took so much away. Her biography is emphatic, gracious, wryly humored and deeply learned—like the genius himself.” —Simon Morrison, author of Bolshoi Confidential

“How do you write a biography of an artist in mid-career? Marina Harss portrays him as a work in process, being created by the ballets he is first dancing and then creating. She has a wonderful ability to convey what a ballet, or a performance, looks like and feels like, and she’s the kind of listener that people tell things to; so her story of Ratmansky’s evolution is vivid and suspenseful. But it acquires real depth through her exploration of Ratmansky’s growing understanding of his own cultural identity, now forced to a critical inflection point by the invasion of his beloved Ukraine. ‘This war has given me a sense of belonging,’ Ratmansky told her; this fascinating book explains why.” —Amanda Vaill, author of Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins

“History itself flows through the life and choreography of Alexei Ratmansky: the histories of Ukraine, Russia, and the West, ballet heritage and ballet modernity, and the evolving presentations of women, of partnering, and of community are Ratmansky terrain. Marina Harss’s The Boy from Kyiv—a page-turner from the first—tells Ratmansky’s story with a fluent lightness that’s like his choreography. Ratmansky’s work and the many possibilities of ballet grow richer and deeper in the mind as you read.” —Alastair Macaulay, chief dance critic, The New York Times, 2007–2018

“Ardent, lively, and deeply researched, The Boy from Kyiv provides important keys to the life and work of the most admired choreographer of our day. Harss has spent significant time talking with Alexei Ratmansky, and even more rewarding, she has watched him work. The result is a fascinating study in relentless creativity and a glimpse into the future of ballet.” —Claudia Roth Pierpont, author of American Rhapsody: Writers, Musicians, Movie Stars, and One Great Building

“[Marina] Harss makes a lively book debut with an appreciative, richly detailed, generously illustrated biography of dancer and choreographer Alexei Ratmansky . . . A delightful gift for ballet...