Showing results for "Ballet" in Literature & Fiction

Before the celebrated late-career world tours, before the Grammy awards, before the chart-topping albums, before 'Hallelujah' and 'So Long, Marianne' and 'Famous Blue Raincoat', the young Leonard Cohen wrote poetry and fiction and yearned for literary stardom. In A Ballet of Lepers, listeners will discover that the magic that animated Cohen's unforgettable body of work was present from the very beginning.

His eyes stick to me, burning my skin as I twirl across the stage. My legs ache with exhaustion, and my head spins, but his hunger pushes me to excellence. His voice echoes in my mind with each step, reminding me that my best isn't enough anymore. This Christmas, he's the only thing between me and rock bottom.

1941, Lodz. When nineteen-year-old Jewish ballerina Eleonore Kantor arrives at the Lodz ghetto, she quickly learns how easy it is to break a person’s spirit. After the Nazis murder her mother before her eyes, she is left with nothing but a pair of ballet slippers. Painstakingly hand-stitched by her mother, they were a gift to remind Eleonore to continue pursuing her dream of becoming a ballerina, no matter what. Determined to find light even in the darkest of places, Eleonore joins the ghetto resistance to open a secret ballet studio for the children.

“The poet is endemic with life itself,” Will Alexander once said, and in this searing pas de trois, Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten, he has exemplified this vital candescence with a transpersonal amplification worthy of the Cambrian explosion. “This being the ballet of the forgotten,” he writes as diasporic witness, “of refracted boundary points as venom.” The volume’s opening poem pays homage to the innovative Nigerian-Yoruban author Amos Tutuola; it ends with an encomium to the modernist Malagasy poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo.

Harry Delamere doesn’t know much about opera, but he’s fairly sure people aren’t supposed to get murdered for real at the climax. In this excerpt from his memoirs he finds himself kidnapped, blown up, suspected of murder, forced to listen to Winston Churchill, kidnapped again — oh, and again — enjoying a terrifying encounter with modern technology and making a most ungentlemanly display of his legs while tackling the threat of world revolution.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 'Code Ballet' - a jovial waltz through the intricate dance of software development! Here, our ensemble cast of product owners, scrum masters, and developers pirouette through development processes. In bite-sized acts, we promise a rollicking mix of industry insight and humor. Don your metaphorical ballet shoes and subscribe today!

Slut Training is a three volume set detailing the downfall and submission of hapless sissy maid Tina. When Ted suggested to his sultry wife Shannon that he wanted to introduce some sexy Dominance and submission role play into their marriage it changes their relationship forever. Be careful what you wish for! In Vol. 1, Sissy Maid, Shannon turns Ted, now Tina, into a mincing, lisping sissy maid. She employs a cleaning service to teach him how to clean and then hires him out to clients who want a little something ‘extra’ in their daily maid service.

A dark Swan Lake retelling where the ‘villain’ steals the girl, set in a world of secret pacts, feuding families, and primal obsession. He’s her curse, but she’s his salvation, and he’ll do anything to keep the ones he loves safe. Rebellious ballerina Luna Bordeaux may be the darling of the New Orleans elite, but she’s destined to dance in her parents’ shadows. Her twenty-second birthday was supposed to be her escape. One last performance, one necessary breakup, then? Freedom.

The Bailey family - Frank, Liliane, and their children Shannon, Tommy, and Grace - find their lives increasingly intertwined with their charismatic parish priest, Father Dale. As Liliane grapples with past trauma and seeks validation through her relationship with Father Dale, Frank struggles with guilt from his work in the military-industrial complex, clinging to Catholic doctrine as a form of redemption.

Un ballet de leprosos es el título de una novela inédita que Leonard Cohen escribió con poco más de veinte años, mucho antes de que su talento se plasmara en más de veinte álbumes y seis premios Grammy y alcanzara una fama mundial.

Sagaen om Emilie er en slægtskrønike fyldt med kærlighedsintriger og hemmeligheder. Vi følger den smukke husmandsdatter Emilie i 1880'ernes Trøndelag i Norge, et samfund med store kløfter mellem rig og fattig. Emilie har fået æren af at arbejde på den fornemme herregård til juleballet. Forventning og spænding hænger i luften, da de glade gæster ankommer. I lånt tøj ligner Emilie ikke længere en fattig bondepige. Flere af mændene fatter interesse for hende, mens gamle hemmeligheder kommer op til overfladen.

When a mysterious ballet theatre surfaces in Paris, people are drawn to the stage productions with a magnetic force. Captivated dancers hastily audition for the grand creations with a sheer disregard for the terror which is rumored to reside within the theatre. A sense of dread permeates the company as the lines between illusion and reality are obscured, when one of the performers is thought to be a "danseur de la crypt", a nefarious villain who carries out justice for the immortals.

Internet gambling and expansion of casinos beyond the Nevada State Line have put a financial strain on racetracks. Johnny Luck, Hong Mian triad big shot, and Jesse James, his beautiful blonde ex-jockey protege, are always on the lookout for ways to expand the triad's gambling operation. Back in the '50s and '60s, Jai Alai was a big deal in Florida. Gamblers would fill the frontons and drop thousands of dollars betting on Basque athletics competing in a sport that was so dangerous it was referred to as the "Ballet of Bullets", and the game is dodging death.

The young ballet dancer, Solo, is a member of a small show dance group that is trained and managed by her father. The girls dream is to be able to turn their passion for dancing into a profession at some point. For this they are ready to incorporate more and more eroticism into the performances. But unfortunately they can't really live this out in the gyms at village festivals. They are planning more daring choreographies and even more transparent nylon outfits in order to get closer to their success goal.

My older housemate David has always been hands-on with me, but in the dressing room after my ballet performance he really takes things to the next level. I just want to please him—I always have—so when he asks me to undress for him, I do exactly that.

In a topsy-turvy ragtime era of side-shows and bamboozlers, Irish Maupin goes from street urchin to burlesque star. Plucked from the streets as a girl and fattened up for candy-factory advertising, she navigates a sensational career around heart-break and loneliness, gaining and losing hundreds of pounds, manipulated by the men around her even as she defies them.

A stranger in the wings, a traitorous pair of toe shoes, and a traumatic turn dancing with The Great Rubio...For ballerina Ashleigh Keaton, it's been one hell of a night. But it's not over yet. When Rubio drags her to a private party at his friend's house in the ritzy part of London, she meets Liam Wilder, a lifestyle dominant and frighteningly seductive man.

I have to escape. My mother is driving me crazy. For Indigo Stevens, ballet classes at Miss Roberta’s ballet studio offer the stability and structure that are missing from her crazy home life. At almost 16, she hopes this is the year she will be accepted into the New York School of Ballet so she can start her real life. First she must prove she’s ready, and that means ignoring Jesse Sanders – the cute boy with dimples who is definitely at the top of Miss Roberta’s List of Forbidden Things for Dancers. But Jesse is the least of Indigo’s concerns.

We were three 18-year-old ballet dancers. All of us talented, committed, and innocent as hell. Until a new ballet master arrived who promised us everything our hearts desired, so long as we did exactly as we were told. And that involved serving him with everything he desired. Were our three virginities a fair price for stardom?

Katrina Morgan is the daughter of world famous ballerina, Liddy Morgan. After losing her mother during a tragic accident, Kat sunk into a state of depression that jeopardized her own dancing dreams. But a decade later, Kat is determined not to allow the only real pleasure she has ever known to slip through her grasp. Leaving behind the comforts of her small town, Kat sets out to join the prominent School of American Ballet in New York City.