More information on this memoir can be found here
With Ballet in My Soul Adventures of a Globe Trotting Impresario by Eva Maze is a fascinating very uplifting detail rich account of the author's nearly 100 year life. We first meet her in pre-World War Two Romania, part of a Jewish family. Eva is a teenager, her parents have the foresight in the face of Nazi threats to Jews to leave Romania. They move to New York City and it is there Maze begins her life time love affair with Ballet.
The many photographs in the book let us see Maze was an exquisite beauty. She fell in love with and married a man who was a combat pilot in WWII. He obtained an important position with the then start up Pan Am airlines. In the mean time Maze pursued lessons with Russian Emigre Ballet Masters in NYC. She was already to old to be groomed to be a prima ballerina but she knew she would how always be involved with dancing. We learn of her college years and I admit I was a bit shocked when she seems to admit she had an affair with an older very debonair man. Her marriage survived this.
In 1948 her husband was transferred to the London office of Pan Am. London was considered a "hardship post" due to food rationing. Maze makes contact once again with famous Russian Ballet teachers and continues her education. Every where Maze goes she jubilantly makes the best of things, her winning personality is very evident.
Next Pan Am sends her husband to New Delhi, a big cultural change. I saw Maze loved the exposure to a new world this brought her. She first begins her work as a professional dance impresario, organizing with partners a ballet tour of India.
I do not wish to give away to much more of Maze's career, she spends a lot of time in Germany and Paris. She writes very openly about coping with the challenges of life over ninety.
I ended up really like this book. It felt like Maze was almost a friend telling her life story. Maze is an elegant highly cultured person with a charming prose style.
There are lots of wonderful photographs.
I throughly enjoyed this captivating memoir.
Mel u
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