Celestial bodies
Subtitle: how to look at ballet
By: Laura Jacobs ; illustrations by Jessica Roux
Contributors: Roux, Jessica, illustrator
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9780465098477
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Ballet; History
Description: "A distinguished dance critic offers an enchanting introduction to the art of ballet. As much as we may enjoy Swan Lake or The Nutcracker, for many of us ballet is a foreign language. It communicates through movement, not words, and its history lies almost entirely abroad--in Russia, Italy, and France. In Celestial Bodies, dance critic Laura Jacobs makes the foreign familiar, providing a lively, poetic, and uniquely accessible introduction to the world of classical dance. Combining history, interviews with dancers, technical definitions, descriptions of performances, and personal stories, Jacobs offers an intimate and passionate guide to watching ballet and understanding the central elements of choreography. Beautifully written and elegantly illustrated with original drawings, Celestial Bodies is essential reading for all lovers of this magnificent art form"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-240) and index.
Table of contents: title: First position first : the foundations of ballet; title: The point of pointe; title: Reading the program : a glossary; title: Tchaikovsky, godfather of ballet; title: Arabesque, above all; title: Thoughts on perfection; title: She's alive!; title: Round and round; title: Sex and the single girl; title: Ballet is woman, but look at its men!; title: To have and to hold...and not to hold; title: Ballerina : a civilization in a tutu.