Tag Archives: The Dancer’s Garden

Stanford’s Company of Authors: Saturday, 4/24

Lively is proud to announce that Stanford’s Company of Authors program will feature Leslie Friedman to talk about her new book, The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View. In 2020, Company of Authors presented Leslie talking about her book, The Dancer’s Garden. She was immediately invited to return.

The program runs from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time with a short break in the middle. There is no charge. Leslie’s 10 minutes is scheduled 4:55-5:05 p.m. The Stanford Bookstore will offer a 10% discount on all of the books discussed on the program. Speakers all have a relationship to Stanford as professors or alums.

The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, cover: close up of a Mourning Cloak wing front, caterpillars eating on back

Shown below is the link to registration and the Zoom link for the program and other delights. A flyer displays the schedule for all the presenters and their books.

AUDIENCE ZOOM LINK (to share)

Friends and family can sign up for the event online. They’ll receive all pre- and post-event emails, including when the recordings are available to view.

Event Zoom Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/98719373201?pwd=NmE5UWVZN0YrMGE5WW5qWEZFSXVsUT09

Passcode: 813691

GIVE LIVELY BOOKS!

It is time to make your list, choose gifts that are just right–time to select Lively gifts! The Lively Foundation helps you by offering three splendid Lively books. They are beautiful to look at, entertaining, and enlightening to read. You will be tempted to give one (or more) to yourself; better buy two of each!

OTTAWA, ILLINOIS: 1967 Photographs by Jonathan Clark, published by Nazraeli Press. This award winning book presents photos of the small town the artist lived in for his first 10 years. He took the pictures when 15 years old. Like the Mozart of photography, his art was already outstanding. Ottawa still exists, but the way of life there is different. You will see a time that is gone in meaningful, beautiful photographs.

THE DANCER’S GARDEN, This beautiful book has text and photos by Leslie Friedman with additional photos by artist Jonathan Clark and one by Dennis Parks, English actor. Review and comments on this book call it “a treasure,” “a marvel,” and “a wonderful quirky, perky series of ruminations on gardens, flowers, plants, trees, cats, people, indeed life. It has magnificent photographs…It is an exhilarating read!”

THE STORY OF OUR BUTTERFLIES: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, Text by Leslie Friedman with photos by Jonathan Clark and Leslie Friedman. Jonathan and Leslie see a butterfly lay eggs on a willow tree. They bring the eggs inside to protect them, care for them through all their life stages, and release the butterflies into nature. Explore cultural ties with butterflies in Chinese legends, Shakespeare’s plays, American pop music, Mozart and Puccini. Climate change threatens butterflies and yet they symbolize hope.

All three books are available now, hardback, fine paper. Prices include shipping. If you use PayPal, add $1.50 to price. To use PayPal: go to the landing page of livelyfoundation.org Scroll down to the DONATE button. Follow PayPal instructions OR make your check to The Lively Foundation, mail it to The Lively Foundation/550 Mountain View Ave/Mountain View, CA 94041-1941

OTTAWA, ILLINOIS: 1967 $55

The Dancer’s Garden $45

The Story of Our Butterflies $36

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from The Lively Foundation!

Stanford’s Company of Authors presents Leslie Friedman

Congratulations to Leslie Friedman, Artistic Director of The Lively Foundation! Stanford University’s distinguished program, Company of Authors, honored her by inviting her to talk about her book, The Dancer’s Garden. Company of Authors presents Stanford related writers to talk about recent publication. The program took place over Zoom on October 24. There were 17 speakers all from a wide variety of fields. Leslie received her Ph.D. in History from Stanford. The event was free and open to the public; only pre-registration was required in order to receive the Zoom code.

The Dancer’s Garden, published in 2019, is available from The Lively Foundation and the Stanford Bookstore.

Response to Leslie’s talk was so positive that she immediately received an invitation to present her new book, The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, in the next Company of Authors, April 24, 2021. This year’s Company of Authors was originally scheduled for May 2, 2020. It would have been live, in person, and on campus at the Stanford Center for the Humanities. The Stanford campus closed because of the pandemic, the Authors’ program, postponed, became a virtual event. With each author appearing individually from his or her home, the relationship of speaker to listeners became even more personal. The hugely successful event was created by History Professor, Peter Stansky. He serves as the moderator of the program. Professor Stansky gave Leslie an exceptionally generous introduction. Christina Fajardo of Stanford’s Continuing Studies coordinated the program and managed the technical direction. It was a wonderful experience, and we are looking forward to April 24th next year!

The Dancer’s Garden: How to buy it!

Thank you all for your queries about buying The Dancer’s Garden. Your interest is profoundly appreciated. Here is how to buy it:

Buy it directly from The Lively Foundation or online from the Stanford Bookstore.

Choose which edition you prefer. Both have the complete text and more than 60 full color photos by the author, Leslie Friedman, plus 10 by renowned photographer, Jonathan Clark, and one by English actor Dennis Parks. Both are printed on fine, glossy paper. Both are hard back books.

Version A: Costs $45. That price includes tax and mailing cost.

Version B: Only available from Lively. Costs $75. It is printed on extra heavy paper. It comes with a photographic print by Jonathan Clark. It is signed and suitable for framing. It also can fit into the book. The price includes tax and mailing cost.

Please mail a check made out to The Lively Foundation to The Lively Foundation/550 Mountain View Avenue/Mountain View, CA 94041-1941 OR go to the landing page of this blog. You will see the PayPal button. You can purchase through PayPal. Please add $2.00 to the cost of each book: Version A: $47 — Version B: $77

Stanford Bookstore: 650/329-1217 X456 or www.stanford.edu/group/bookstore/orders.html

We will send you The Dancer’s Garden right away. Thank you again!

Artist in Residence: Dr. Leslie Friedman, Dancer, Choreographer, Writer

This is an article by author Don McPhail. It appeared in the November issue of OMVNA (vol. 31, Number 4) which covers the Old Mountain View, CA area.

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE: Dr. Leslie Friedman, Dancer, Choreographer, Writer

With quiet energy and a generous nature, Leslie Friedman is a local treasure. Her willingness to share and motivate other is distinctive. Residents who have participated in Leslie’s dance classes or the International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley which she founded and directs may be surprised to learn that this same unselfish teacher is an award winning, world-renowned dancer and ambassador of art. All of Leslie’s classes, the Festival, and other Lively Foundation events take place at Mountain View’s Masonic Lodge, in the heart of Old Mountain View.

Leslie Friedman’s extraordinary background is documented on The Lively Foundation’s website/blog www.livelyfoundation.org Leslie’s remarkable career as a dancer and choreographer has earned her acclaim from audiences and critics alike on four continents. She has performed with the support of the US State Department and host countries in Russia, China, India,England, Spain, Poland, Egypt, South Korea, Japan, and more. A writer and former history professor, she received her Ph.D. in Modern British History from Stanford. She taught at Stanford, Vassar, and Case Western Reserve before returning to dance professionally.

An invitation to introduce American modern dance to the artists of India’s National School of Drama led to a Fulbright Lectureship to support her work and travel. Beginning at Viswa Bharati University, home of Tagore, India’s Nobel winning poet, she performed across India: new Delhi, Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta, and Jaipur. Her work was so well received that each place invited her back for more performances.

Representatives of Indian arts institutions, US consulates or Fulbright in India took her to the next plane or train, but she traveled as she danced: solo. She was welcomed by people with whom she maintains long friendships. On China or Bulgaria she says, “I met wonderful individuals and learned so much.”

The success of her first India trips led to more. She performed and taught in Sri Lanka, Egypt, and Tunisia on that journey. Word of her beautiful dancing and ability to relate to new people and places spread, leading to more journeys touring her art. Next: Budapest, Pecs, and Gyor, Hungary; Barcelona and Madrid, Spain; Moscow and Leningrad, USSR. She knew these were peak experiences and was thrilled to be doing what she loved for appreciative, knowledgeable audiences.

The US State Department and The Place, London’s foremost theater for modern dance, co-sponsored her performances there. She taught her choreography to London’s Ballet Rambert. In China, she taught modern dance and created choreography for the national ballet academies: Beijing, Shenyang, and Shanghai. She introduced modern dance to Poland’s national ballets, making four extensive trips to Poland and Romania performing and choreographing.

Lively Foundation Artistic Director Leslie Friedman

She continued performing concerts across the US and the Bay Area. She and her company performed education performances about the the Gold Rush for thousands of students from San Jose to Marin. She created several firsts: concerts honoring the many holidays at year’s end; benefit concerts for breast cancer patients; Heroic, Beloved, a concert for Women’s History Month performed in multiple states’ universities and arts centers.

For this writer, Leslie Friedman’s delight in sharing her art is most inspiring see in the context of tumultuous historic events going on around her as she keeps dancing.

Current book: The Dancer’s Garden, published in April, 2019

Current project: International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley, Founder & Artistic Director

The Dancer’s Garden: Great Review (first published review, too)

The Dancer’s Garden by Leslie Friedman (The Lively Foundation, 2019)

This is a wonderful, quirky, perky series of ruminations on gardens, flowers, plants, trees, cats, people, indeed life. It has magnificent photographs mostly taken by the author herself but also some by her husband, the distinguished photographer and printer, Jonathan Clark, the proprietor of that fine private press, appropriately named The Artichoke Press. Leslie herself, a member of the Institute, is well-known primarily as a dancer and choreographer but is also a fine historian. Some years ago, to an extent sidelined by hip problems, she decided to turn more attention to her garden in Mountain View. In this delightful book she tells us about the various growing things, mostly flowers, that she deals with, their characteristics, difficulties and rewards. She and Jonathan expand their horizons, coping with so many growing things, not only flowers but pine, apple, and orange trees. They rescue abandoned cacti from the neighborhood. The author has an amazingly direct way of dealing with what she is putting into the earth, the satisfactions and beauty (so wonderfully captured in the photographs) when they flourish; the sadness when they die. She makes being a gardener such an immediate, connected, and personal matter.

In the text, Leslie recounts her adventures with a wide range of growing things, most vividly oxalis, chrysanthemums, poppies, narcissus, camellias, primroses, magnolia, all beautifully illustrated. She is very insightful on how to deal with all these and other growing objects, and how they can be menaced by birds, notably crows, as well as by cats, humans, too much water and too little water. There is such a splendid sense of engagement with the ambitious enterprise of having a garden. As she writes towards the end of the text about fruit (but it may be about any of the myriad aspects of nature that she has nurtured): “When I had acquired my first new hip, my first foray into the garden was to see the apple blossoms. The apples would arrive later than the peaches. The oranges come when we run out of apples. We change partners, but it is the same dance.” Leslie Friedman has choreographed a garden and other growing things much as she has both performed and created dance. As she concludes her book: “It is a wonder.” It is an exhilarating read. Peter Stansky, Frances & Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University. Professor Stansky is the author of many books, most recent is Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist ( Oxford University Press, 2019) with co-author, Fred Leventhal This review appeared in the journal of the Institute of Historical Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2, Fall, 2019

For information about purchasing the book, please contact The Lively Foundation, livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net

GARDEN BOOK: The Dancer’s Garden by Leslie Friedman

The Lively Foundation is proud to announce the publication of The Dancer’s Garden, a new book by Lively’s Artistic Director, Leslie Friedman. It is a beautiful hardback book with text and more than 60 full color photographs by the author and 10 photographs contributed by internationally admired photographer, Jonathan Clark.

Cover photos by photographer, Jonathan Clark.

“Neighbors, strangers, cats, flowers, weeds, trees appear in the garden and in my memory. I meet time through lives in the garden, including my own.” Dancer/choreographer Leslie Friedman writes about her humorous, informative, piquant experiences in gardening, dance, and life. Friedman’s groundbreaking solo dance performances have been acclaimed worldwide. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Stanford, and an A.B. summa cum laude from Vassar College. Her writing has been published in the US, France, India, and Poland.

The book is now available from The Lively Foundation. Hard back printed on fine, glossy paper. Price: $45 (this price includes postage). Or the book with signed photographic print by Jonathan Clark, $75 (this price includes postage). edition. To buy The Dancer’s Garden, contact livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net