Books About Dance

[kyriacarlisle]

I need to do some catching up on dance and dance history (the classic "librarian two books ahead of likely reference questions" approach). I'm especially interested in ballet and modern, though if there's a magnificent book about another dance form, I'm very glad to know about that, too.

Much though I loved them as a child, I'm not really looking for books like A Very Young Dancer or Life at the Royal Ballet School (although if you happen to be looking for a graphic novel about ballet, try Siena Cherson Siegel & Mark Siegel, To Dance). I'm also not so very interested in hagiography - in my usual field, I'd think of this as the ten zillion coffee table books about Maria Callas. On the other hand, if the photographs are simply too revelatory to pass up....

I'm reading Apollo's Angels now. I've already read Dance to the Piper, Winter Season, Off Balance, and Behind the Scenes at the Boston Ballet.

Comments

[emei]

'Dancer' by Colum McCann is a fabulous novel, a literary fantasy about Rudolf Nureyev, a fictionalised biography. Interesting life story, and good ballet parts.

[kyriacarlisle]

Oh, interesting! I probably wouldn't have stumbled across this; thanks for the recommendation.