NEIL BALDWIN

A partir de experiencias personales fruto de años de viaje, un amplio conocimiento de obras históricas y eruditas y una valoración en profundidad del arte y la cultura hispanoamericanas, Neil Baldwin, biografo aclamado por la critica, recrea el mito de la Serpiente Emplumada a traves de su evolucion a lo largo de los milenios, y ofrece una guia fundamental tanto para el viajero de salon como para el turista apasionado que pretendan imbuirse de la belleza inolvidable de las ruinas de Mexico.

Meticulously pieced together from personal experiences that come with years of travel, an extensive knowledge of the historic and scholarly works, and a deep appreciation of Latin American art and cultureboth ancient and moderncritically-acclaimed biographer Neil Baldwin has created a mosaic of words and images retelling the myth of the Plumed Serpent (or Quetzalcoatl) as it has evolved through the millennia. He has also created an essential guidebook for the armchair traveller and passionate tourist alike. Only a few hours by air from the United States are the mysteries and hauntingly beautiful ruins of Mexico. Among the vines intertwined in the frail latticework of crumbling palaces, spiraling geometric motifs covering vast walls that sink beneath the jungle, and nearly vertical temple steps leading hundreds of feet to a dizzying view of sky and earth, images of Quetzalcoatl abound. The fanged, bug-eyed feathered serpent thrusts his malevolent, sneering head from the pyramid at Teotihuacan; he swims in a river of rock around the temple at Xochicalco; and at Chichen Itza, serpent and jaguar dance on a trail of stone, their embrace spawning a monstrous snake with clawed forefeet. Depicted as part man, snake, and bird, the Plumed Serpent is the earliest known creation myth from Mesoamerica, the region spanning Mexico and most of Central America. He embodies good and evil, sky and earth, feast and faminethe duality of life itself. Steep, massive temples were built in his honor at Teotihuacan, the vast city of ruins near todays Mexico City, and at Chichen Itza in northern Yucatan, the intricate complex that includes the famed ballcourt. Moctezuma, the ruler of the Aztecs, mistook Hernan Cortez and the invasion of the Spanish in 1519 for the return of Quetzalcoatl. The Catholic Church with its army of Franciscan monks adapted his legend to introduce the indigenous people to Catholicism. The myth enhanced Emiliano Zapatas stature as a latter-day Quetzalcoatl during the Mexican Revolution. Diego Rivera and the modern muralists invoked his image to include indigenous themes in their state-sponsored art. And Quetzalcoatl inspired English author D. H. Lawrence to write a new American novel. These and many other tales are recounted in the words and images of Neil Baldwins Legends of the Plumed Serpent. Whether sharing a moment of reflection among the breathtaking ruins, delving into the historic role of Quetzalcoatl during the Spanish Conquest, or tracing the themes of revolution and rebirth in the art of Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, Neil Baldwins enlightening prose captures the imagination. Accompanied by numerous illustrationsmany photographs taken by the author, and others painstakingly researched and gathered over the past decadeLegends of the Plumed Serpent is a true labor of love.

A major biographythe first in three decadesof one of the most important artistic forces of the twentieth century, the legendary American dancer and choreographer who upended dance, propelling the art form into the modern age, and whose profound and pioneering influence is still being felt today."Brings together all the elements of Grahams colorful life...with wit, verve, critical discernment, and a powerful lyricism.Mary Dearborn, acclaimed author of Ernest HemingwayTime magazine called her the Dancer of the Century. Her technique, used by dance companies throughout the world, became the first long-lasting alternative to the idiom of classical ballet. Her pioneering movementspowerful, dynamic, jagged, edgy, forthrightcombined with her distinctive system of training, were the epitome of American modernism, performance as art. Her work continued to astonish and inspire for more than sixty years as she choreographed more than 180 works.At the heart of Grahams work: movement that could express inner feeling.Neil Baldwin, author of admired biographies of Man Ray (Truly definitive . . . absolutely fascinating Patricia Bosworth) and Thomas Edison (Absorbing, gripping, a major contribution to our understanding of a remarkable man and a remarkable era Robert Caro), gives us the artist and performer, the dance monument who led a cult of dance worshippers as well as the woman herself in all of her complexity.Here is Graham, from her nineteenth-century (born in 1894) Allegheny, Pennsylvania, childhood, to becoming the star of the Denishawn exotic ballets, and in 1926, at age thirty-two, founding her own company (now the longest-running dance company in America). Baldwin writes of how the company flourished during the artistic explosion of New York Citys midcentury cultural scene; of Erick Hawkins, in 1936, fresh from Balanchines School of American Ballet, a handsome Midwesterner fourteen years her junior, becoming Grahams muse, lover, and eventual spouse. Graham, inspiring the next generation of dancers, choreographers, and teachers, among them: Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor.Baldwin tells the story of this large, fiercely lived life, a life beset by conflict, competition, and lonelinessfilled with fire and inspiration, drive, passion, dedication, and sacrifice in work and in dance creation.