Wrights & Wrongs - by Peter Wright (Paperback)

About the Book

The memoirs of dancer, producer and director Peter Wright, one of the foremost dance creators from the 1950s to today

Book Synopsis

Peter Wright has been a dancer, choreographer, teacher, producer and director in the theatre as well as in television for over 70 years.

In Wrights & Wrongs, Peter offers his often surprising views of today's dance world, lessons learned - and yet to learn - from a lifetime's experience of ballet, commercial theatre and television.

Peter started his career in wartime, with the Kurt Jooss company. He has worked with such greats as Pina Bausch, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Marcia Haydée, Richard Cragun, Monica mason, Karen Kain, Miyako Yoshida and Carlos Acosta - as well as today's generation of starts including Alina Cajocaru, Marianela Nunez, Natalia Osipova and Lauren Cuthbertson.

While now regarded as part of the British ballet establishment, for many years Peter developed his career outside London, particularly in Germany with John Cranko's Stuttgart Ballet. That distance gives him a unique and unrivalled view on ballet companies. His close association with choreographers Frederick Ashton, Ninette de Valois, founder of the Royal Ballet, Kenneth MacMillan and David Bintley gives Peter an authoritative perspective on British ballet.

Wrights and Wrongs includes black-and-white photographs from Wright's career, and as Exeunt magazine comments: 'Anyone with an interest in British ballet will find plenty to occupy them in Wright's book... the many dramas and delights of his life in dance spring forth from the page with brio.'

Review Quotes

'stories and anecdotes come thick and fast, each bringing someone or some event to vivid life, all told in Peter Wright's easy going style...There's something interesting, or something to smile about, on almost every page...There are also two sets of excellent archive photographs. Highly recommended.' SeeingDance

About the Author

Peter Wright made his debut as a dancer with Ballets Jooss during World War II. He created his first ballet, A Blue Rose, for Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1957. Wright's productions of the classics now feature in the repertories of companies around the world. In 1969 he joined The Royal Ballet as Associate to the Directors, later Associate Director. In 1990 Wright was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award by the Royal Academy of Dance. In 1991 he was made a Fellow of the Birmingham Conservatoire of Music and received an Honorary Doctorate from London University. He was awarded a Knighthood (1993), an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Birmingham (1994), the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance (2004) and the Centenary Award for Dance (2013). He is President of the Benesh Institute, a Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Dance and Patron of the London Ballet Circle.