Over the course of the past year, I’ve read (and reread) three beautiful books focused on the world of ballet. Different in scope, content, and voice, each one is a book that I long to return to again and again, and that I cannot recommend highly enough. Since childhood I have been on a continuous hunt for books on ballet that would allow me to surround myself with even more dance. One summer I must have checked out every ballet book that the library held, desperate to find something real within their pages. I always longed for something more than just the fluffy pink visions of ballet, I wanted a book that would capture what I saw in the studio and backstage, something inspiring, and beautiful, and real. Thankfully, over the years I have found many beautiful, honest, breathtaking books, and thus begins an ongoing series of ballet books to add to your bookshelf, or to perhaps return to once again.
by Peter Boal
“The shared meditation and the chance to take our human form and rise to its epitome through movement and music is a pinnacle of existence. I’m an atheist, but the ballet studio, like a temple or ziggurat or Quaker meeting house, is where I come closest to recognizing something bigger than me.”
Illusions of Camelot by Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Artistic Director Peter Boal is not exclusively a memoir of his journey through dance, but rather it holds space for all of the life that occurs outside of the studio, while weaving in the early impressions of a young dancer stepping into the world of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. When I first sat down to read Illusions of Camelot, I found that I could not stop. One chapter turned to ten, and I eventually had to force myself to go to bed so that this beautiful work wouldn’t be consumed with too much haste. It is clear from the first page that Boal is at heart not only a dancer, but a talented writer as well, whose voice soars through these pages with character, clarity, and beauty. His ability to capture individuals upon the page, and evoke time and place with such exactness of mood, makes me yearn to read more of his work. There is some comforting quality in the way he writes that has drawn me back to this book again and again. It is clear that he has had a writer's eye since childhood, for I no of no other way to bring memories back to life in such a way that they encircle the reader with their essence.
Illusions of Camelot is filled with the kind of stories that get passed down through generations, and many other tales that never leave the tongue. Boal writes with courage, managing to paint his memories with lush language, and rich descriptions that pull you into his world. He brings his younger self to life in the most delightful way, and weaves in plenty of humor in his accounts of the people who filled his early memories. This memoir is not only a beautiful reflection on what shaped and influenced Boal as a child and young man, there is also a great deal of social commentary on what it meant to grow up in a place like Bedford, New York. It is a brilliant take on a coming of age story, and a heartfelt capturing of humanity in all of its magic and imperfections. From schoolyard scuffles, to sitting bedside with Balanchine, Illusions of Camelot is a startlingly honest telling of Boal’s early life, and it will undoubtedly touch you in the particular light in which it casts the world.
by Meg Howrey
“...but one should never underestimate ballet. The body, which doesn’t understand time, remembers movement. Once class starts, my body falls into position like batter filling a pan… This window, the view of the buildings opposite, the feel of the barre under my hand, it’s all a homecoming”
I always keep an eye out for any novels that even slightly mention dance, as they are few and far between. Last summer when I stumbled upon the newly released They’re Going to Love You, I had a feeling that I had found a treasure. Written by former ballet dancer Meg Howrey, this book illustrates the pain of losing your childhood dreams, and of finding new paths to walk when your heart still aches for where it thought it would land. It’s about family legacies being passed down, and what it means to not become what everyone expects you to be.
Carlisle is the daughter of a former Balanchine dancer, and though she spent her early life trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps, life doesn’t always line up so easily. Within these pages, she makes peace with the road that has led her to where she is, and with the artist within her who is fighting for a chance to be seen. I recommend this book to anyone who has watched a dream slip out of reach, or found themselves separated from what they thought would fill their days. It’s a reckoning with the twists of life, and a beautifully written study of imperfect relationships. In They’re Going to Love You, Howrey manages to capture the little heartaches woven into the process of becoming, and the way that humans manage to find their way home. I will be turning to this novel again and again to remind myself that we all have some devotion written into our bones, and it is only a disservice to ourselves to try and ignore them. Carlisle gave me hope for the artists in the world who don’t always feel that there is a place for their perspective and necessary passions.
“Don’t tell me there isn’t dance left in your body.”
Serenade: A Balanchine Story
by Toni Bentley
“There was never a time before I danced. Or after either.”
“I cannot climb outside the beauty of Serenade, a beauty so deep as to have changed the double helix of my DNA, my body and mind literally reshaped.”
“To feel the shattering of beauty passed, a sadness so spacious as to be a kind of welcome perversity that will never abate.”
Most recently I read Serenade by Toni Bentley, which nearly knocked me off of my feet with its brilliant capturing of the world of ballet, and the souls who created the works we so cherish today. Serenade is both a memoir of Toni Bentley’s journey to and through the New York City Ballet, and a detailed study of Balanchine’s 1934 piece: “Serenade”. It is a love letter to ballet, to music, and to the pieces of art that touch us so deeply that they change us forever. She writes of Serenade like an old friend that she knows better than she knows herself. My well loved paperback copy is filled with underlined sentences, exclamation marks, and circled paragraphs that seem to speak of so much more than just this one piece of work. If you have ever deeply loved a piece of art, you will surely find yourself madly underlining as well.
While Balanchine's Serenade is the titular focus, this memoir delves deep into the history of ballet, Balanchine, Tchaikovsky, the School of American Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and Bentley’s own ballet journey. If you read one book on dance, let it be this. Bentley’s words will cause you to fall in love with art all over again.
“The work of a young ballet dancer is only superficially, externally, about those endless classes, and tendus, and sweat: those daily repetitions are changing who she is, turning her out, literally, so that her insides are on the outside. It is not an act of words, of verbal expression, but of the body revealing something previously unseen, unknown, nonexistent.”
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