I believe in never looking back, never indulging in nostalgia, or reminiscing. ''It wasn`t until years after I had relinquished a ballet that I could bear to watch someone else dance it. Whether it was a dance of consuming jealousy, I Medea and he Jason, or one of tender love like `Appalachian Spring,` he the Husbandman, I the Bride, it came so close to real life that at times it made me ill. I still can`t believe how after we had separated, Erick and I still had to dance together in performance. ''It is amazing what the spirit can get through if you are determined enough. This is Graham, for example, as she considers her stormy marriage to Hawkins: Here, the keenest insights come in analyses of her personal life. The book is sprinkled with very brief comments on and pictures of many of her distinguished dance alumni (including Merce Cunningham, Pearl Lang and Anna Sokolow) and occasional students (such as Betty Ford and Madonna) and her sharp descriptions of some of her ballets but for a fuller understanding of the inspiration for and development of key Graham works, the serious dance student will find much richer material in her 1973 ''Notebooks.''
There, she created such landmark works as ''Cave of the Heart'' (1946), her excoriating version of the Medea myth, and ''Appalachian Spring'' (1944), a story of American pioneers made memorable through Aaron Copland`s score, Isamu Noguchi`s scenery and Jean Rosenthal`s lighting, as well as Graham`s choreography and her electric dance partnership with Erick Hawkins. Denis and Ted Shawn, and on to the struggle and glory of her own company. Beginning with her childhood in sooty Pittsburgh, where her physician father would enthrall her with his retelling of the Greek myths, she traces her career through her formative years with the modern dance pioneers Ruth St.
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