Paluch, Vicki Smith. “Motherhood Doesn’t Slow Down Ballerinas,” Los Angeles Daily News, April 24, 2005.
Pappas, Nickolas, ed. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Second Republic, 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Pardo, Carol. “La Petite Danseuse de Degas.” DanceView 20, no. 4 (Autumn 2003): 34–37.
Pepys, Tom. “Tragically.” Dance and Dancers (February 1962): 26.
Petipa, Marius. Russian Ballet Master: The Memoirs of Marius Petipa. Edited by Lillian Moore. Translated by Helen Whittaker. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958.
Plistetskaya, Maya. I, Maya Plistetskaya. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
“Poor Emma Livry.” Dance Australia (December–January 2006/7): 65.
Prest, Julia. “Dancing King: Louis XIX’s Roles in Molière’s Comédies-ballets, from Court to Town.” Seventeenth Century 16, no. 2 (2001): 285.
Prudhommeau, Germaine. “Camargo-Sallé, Duel au pied levé,” Danser (March 1986): 78–81.
Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich. Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse. Translated by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov. New York: Bollingen Books, 1964.
Quatrelles L’Épine, Maurice. “Une Danseuse française au XIXe siècle, Emma Livry.” In Bulletin de la Societé de l’histoire du théâtre, revue trimestrielle. Novembre–Janvier, 1908–1909. Paris: Impressions Artistiques L.M. Fortin & Cie., 1909.
Rameau, Pierre. The Dancing Master. Translated by Cyril W. Beaumont. New York: Dance Horizons Republications, 1970.
Ravaldi, Claudia, Alfredo Vannacci, Enrica Bolgnesi, Stefania Mancini, Carlo Faravelli, and Valdo Ricca. “Gender Role, Eating Disorder Symptoms, and Body Image Concern in Ballet Dancers.” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 61 (2006): 529–35.
Regan, Kate. “This Ballerina Is No Fragile Swan.” San Francisco Chronicle, November 10, 1985.
Rico, Laura. “Keeping Dancers on Their Toes: New Technique Allows MRIs of Ballet Dancers En Pointe, Aiding Injury Treatment and Prevention.” University of California, Irvine. www.uci.edu/features/2010/08/feature_ballet_100830.php.
Ries, Frank W.D. “Nijinska, Bronislava.” In International Dictionary of Ballet. Edited by Martha Bremser. London: St. James Press, 1993.
Robbin-Challan, Louise. “Social Conditions of Ballet Dancers of the Paris Opera in the Nineteenth Century.” Choreography and Dance 2, no. 1 (1992): 17–28.
Romanovsky-Krassinsky, Marie (Princess). Dancing in Petersburg: The Memoirs of Kschessinska. London: Gollancz, 1960.
Rowes, Barbara. “Baryshnikov Picks a New Partner with Classic Grace, Cynthia Harvey.” People, January 1981.
Russell, Jeffrey A. “Anatomy and Motion of the Ankle in Female Ballet Dancers.” Phd diss., University of Wolverhampton, 2010.
Schorer, Suki, and Russell Lee. Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
Schulman. Jennie. “National Ballet of Canada,” Back Stage, October 30, 1998.
Sechelski, Denise S. “Garrick’s Body and the Labor of Art in Eighteenth-Century Theater.” Eighteenth Century Studies 29, no. 4 (Summer 1996): 369–89.
Siegel, Marcia B. “Growing Old in the Land of the Young.” The Hudson Review 29, no. 2 (Summer 1976): 249–54.
Smith, Gary. “Rex Harrington a True Ballet Star.” Hamilton Spectator, November 27, 1998.
Sobolevskaya, Olga. “Anastasia Volochkova: A Perfect Scandal,” RIA Vesti, October 3, 2003. http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/09-10-2003/3866-volochkova-0.
Solway, Diane. Nureyev, His Life. New York: William Morrow, 1998.
Sorell, Walter. Dance in Its Time. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1981.
———. “The Diaghilev Era.” In The Dance Anthology. Edited by Cobbett Steinberg. New York: New American Library, 1980.
Souritz, Elizabeth. Soviet Choreographers in the 1920s. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
Springer, John. “I’m Not Fat, Says Ballerina Faulted for ‘Too Many Sugarplums.’ ” December 13, 2010. www.today.com.
Statistical Insights on the Arts, vol. 3, no. 1. Hill Strategies Research Inc., September 2004. Report funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the Ontario Arts Council.
Statistics Canada 2006 Census. Employment Income Statistics in Constant (2005) Dollars, Dancers. www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/index-eng.cfm.
Summers, Anne. “On Begging to be a Bridesmaid in a Ballerina Dress: Some Meanings of British Fashion in the 1950s.” History Workshop Journal 44 (Autumn 1997): 226–32.
Swift, Mary Grace. “Dancers in Flames.” Dance Chronicle 5, no. 1 (1982): 1–10.
Taylor, Jeffrey. “The Dancer, the Tsar, and the Boy Who Believed He Was the Romonov’s Lost Heir.” Express on Sunday, July 30, 2006, 58–59.
Toepfer, Karl. “Orgy Salon: Aristocracy and Pornographic Theatre in Pre-Revolutionary Paris.” Performing Arts Journal 12, no.2/3 (1990): 110–36.
Tölgyes, T. and J. Nemessury. “Epidemiological Studies on Adverse Dieting Behaviours and Eating Disorders Among Young People in Hungary.” Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 39 (2004): 647–54.
Trachtman, Paul. “Degas and His Dancers,” Smithsonian (April 2003): 89–95.
Turner, Bryan S., and Steven P. Wainwright. “Corps de Ballet: The Case of the Injured Ballet Dancer.” Sociology of Health & Illness 25, no. 4 (2003): 271–72.
U.S. Census Bureau. 2000 Census. Earnings by Detailed Occupation: 1999: United States: Females. www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/earnings/call2usfemale.html.
Verghis, Sharon. “Best Foot Forward.” Sydney Morning Herald, December 14, 2002.
Vigée-Le Brun, Louise-Elisabeth. The Memoirs of Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, Member of the Royal Academy of Paris, Rouen, Saint-Luke of Rome, Parma, Bologna, Saint-Petersburg, Berlin, Geneva and Avignon. London: Camden Press, 1989.
Volkov, Solomon. Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.
Wainwright, Steven P., and Bryan S. Turner. “ ‘Just Crumbling to Bits’? An Exploration of the Body, Ageing, Injury and Career in Classical Ballet Dancers.” Sociology 40 (2006): 237–54.
Walker, Morley. “A Place in Her Hart: Former RWB Star Has Fond Memories of Winnipeg But Her Life Now Is in Toronto.” Winnipeg Free Press, April 17, 2008.
Walker, Susan. “Ballet Shows Its Muscles.” Toronto Star, November 22, 1997.
———. “Some Signs of Life After Dance; Their Bodies Pushed to the Brink, Dancers Seek Second Careers with Help of a Local Agency.” Toronto Star, January 31, 2008.
“Weight of the Law Lifts Swan Lake Star Back to Starlight.” Adelaide Advertiser. November 28, 2003.
Wente, Margaret. “The Glasco Fiasco (Act XVII) in which the National Ballet’s Belligerent Ballerina Triumphs in Court, But Loses Friends.” Globe and Mail, July 4, 2000.
Winter, Marian Hannah. The Pre-Romantic Ballet. London: Pitman, 1974.
Woodcock, Sarah C. “Archives of the Dance: Later Dance Holdings of the Theatre Museum.” Dance Research: Journal of the Society for Dance Research 8, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 62–77.
———. “Margaret Rolfe’s Memoirs of Marie Taglioni: Part 1.” Dance Research: The Journal for the Society for Dance Research 7, no. 1 (Dance History Issue, Spring 1989): 3–19.
Wyman, Max. Evelyn Hart: An Intimate Portrait. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991.
Yokel, Nathalie. “Légendaire Emma Livry.” Danser 195 (January 2001): 22.
Young, Susan. “From Ballet to Boxing, The Evolution of a Female Athlete.” In My Life at the Gym. Edited by Jo Malin. Albany: SUNY Press, 2010.
Zorina, Vera. Zorina. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986.
Acknowledgments
Th
is book represents my very own dance marathon: intensely and exhaustingly performed with the help of numerous partners who nudged me along, keeping the momentum going. To all of you, I offer my heartfelt thanks. But to name names: my children, Vladimir and Isadora Barac, who for months ate at the dining-room table surrounded by ballet books and never once complained. This book would never have been launched without the encouragement and enthusiasm of my publishers at Greystone Books, in particular Nancy Flight and Rob Sanders. My agent, Hilary McMahon of Westwood Creative Artists, continues to push me forward, so my gratitude also to her. At my workplace, the Globe and Mail newspaper, Style editor Danny Sinopoli cheered me on and helped nail down the subtitle. The Globe’s photo librarian, Paula Wilson, gave me a crash course in sourcing and buying my own images, and Harry Kokolakis in IT Support, patiently showed me, during his time off, how to collate them electronically. In New York City, Peter Rohowsky, executive manager of the Art Archive at Art Resource, volunteered to track down far-flung historic images of obscure ballerinas and claimed that gazing at rare pictures of Pavlova was his just reward. Gotta love that. Phyllis Collazo of the New York Times also helped track down hard-to-get images and was super fast and friendly about it. Cameron Tolton, professor emeritus at Victoria University, the University of Toronto, helped with the French translations and listened to my ballerina gossip, goading me on, of course. I bow to him. On the topic of scholars, Cheryl Belkin Epstein, dance historian at Canada’s National Ballet School, and Caroline O’Brien, a costume designer on faculty at Ryerson Theatre School, Ryerson University, read the manuscript in its later stages and generously gave astute suggestions, which definitely made the book better. Thank you also to Selma Odom, professor emerita, Department of Dance, York University, for her kind support of the project. At the Toronto Reference Library, performing arts librarian Lee Ramsay helped me source centuries-old documents and shared her own ideas. To her I owe the expression, “bonfire ballerina.” Ballet company publicists who unstintingly fulfilled my requests for information, despite their already busy schedules, include Katharina Plumb, manager of media relations, New York City Ballet; Kelly Ryan, director of press and public relations, American Ballet Theatre; Caitlin Gillette, communications and special projects associate, New York City Ballet; and Eli Wallis, publicist, the Australian Ballet. My deepest appreciation.
Last but not least, given the subject matter, I want to thank the ballerinas, all of them—past, present, and future—for kindling in me a love of dance in the first place, a fire that won’t soon burn out. In writing this book, I rediscovered so many ballerinas whose accomplishments have tended to be forgotten in the march of time. I am so happy to resurrect their names for a new generation of ballet lovers. There are so many ballerinas, and any omissions I have made can be chalked up to a lack of space, not a lack of interest. In particular, I thank the former ballerina Svea Eklof, who lent me her Balanchine books and shared with me stories of dancing in his company. She became my friend even though, by members of her particular sorority, dance critics are often regarded as the enemy. She could see that my heart was in the right place.
Finally, this book is dedicated to Victor Barac, my very own danseur noble, who held me up when I thought I might fall. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Index
Numbers refer to pages in the print edition
Page numbers followed by “n” and a note number are references to notes.
les abonnés, 53–54, 57, 63, 67
Académie Royale de Danse, 10
Académie Royale de Musique (later Paris Opéra), 11, 12
ageism, 150–53, 163–67, 169. See also Glasco, Kimberly
Alberta Ballet, 159, 166, 175, 190
Alcina (Handel), 34
Les Algues, vii, 93
Allard, Marie, 37
American Ballet Theatre, 147–51, 187, 193–94, 195–96
Anderson, Reid, 152, 155
André, Grand Duke, 121
Anna, Empress of Russia, 116
athleticism, of ballerinas, 175–78. See also injury prevention and athletic training
Auber, Daniel, 80
Australian Ballet, 182–84
Azincourt, Mlle d’, 17
Baccelli, Giovanna, 19
Bagg, Beverly, 142–43, 175
Bakst, Léon, 123
Balanchine, George (Georgi Balanchivadze): early career of, 130–31; legacy of, 115, 129–30, 137–39, 140, 198; as tyrannical dance master, 131–37, 144–46
ballerina-courtesans, 14–19; Camargo, 25–31, 32–33, 35; Guimard, 35–45; Prévost, 19–25, 32. See also Kschessinska, Mathilde; Paris Opéra; prostitution, of ballerinas
ballet blanc, 49
Ballet British Columbia, 156
Le Ballet de Cassandre, 5
Le Ballet de la Merlaison, 5
Le Ballet de la Nuit, 6, 10
Le Ballet de l’Impatience, 10
Les Ballets Russes, 122–25, 130
Ballon, Claude, 20–21
Balzac, Honoré de, 53
Baratte, Maria, 85
Barbier, Jean-François, 19
Barre, Jean-Auguste, 80
Bart, Patrice, 70
Baryshnikov, Mikhail, 149–51, 198
La Bayadère (Petipa), 92, 128, 157
Beauchamps, Pierre, 11
Beaugrand, Léontine, 50, 76
Bellérophon (Lully), 23
Benoît-Lévy, Jean, viii
Bentley, Toni, 134, 138, 144
Berain, Jean-Louis, 11
Blasis, Carlo, 10
Blondy, Michel, 25, 26
Boardman, Andrea, 169
body image issues: ballerinas as athletes, 175–78; ballerinas as machines, 134–37; control of ballerinas’ bodies, 158–59; eating disorders and thinness, 129, 137–46, 158, 169–73, 177–78; individual body types, 195; linked to promotions, 150; plastic surgeries, 137. See also ageism; racism
Boigne, Charles de, 59, 72
Boissy, Louis de, 33
Bonaparte, Louis-Napoléon (Napoléon III), 52, 74–75, 89, 90
Boucher, François, 42
Bourbon, Charles de, 18–19
Bourbon, Louis de, Prince de Condé, 29
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (Molière), 9
Bournonville, August, 51–52
Bozzacchi, Guiseppina, 61, 75, 76
Brianza, Carlotta, 92
Brooks, Romaine, 124
Browne, Leslie, 150
Browse, Lillian, 68
Bruce, Henry James, 125
Bruhn, Erik, 155, 162
Bull, Deborah, 140
Camargo, Ferdinand-Joseph de Cupis, 29
Camargo, Marie-Anne de Cupis de, 25–31, 32–33, 35, 44–45
Camargo, Sophie de Cupis, 29
Campanini, Barbara, 19
Campra, André, 37, 210n18
Les Caractères de la danse (Prévost), 20, 26, 38
Les Cardinals (Halévy), 51
Carteron, Jean-Adolphe, 86
Casanova, Giacomo, 26
Castor et Pollux (Rameau), 37
Catherine II, Empress of Russia (Catherine the Great), 116
Cellier, Francine, 52
Cerrito, Fanny, 50, 75
Charpentier, Marc-Antoine, 19
Charrat, Janine, vii–ix, 93
Chassiron, Charles de, 72–73, 217n7
Chauviré, Yvette, 69
La Chercheuse d’esprit (Gardel), 37–38
Chernov, Michael, 199, 201
choreographers: Charrat, viii, 93; contemporary 192; of courtly ballet, 6, 9–10; Kudelka, 157; at Paris Opéra, 20, 37, 51–52; Ratmansky, 196; Richardson, 204; of Romantic ballet, 84; of Russian ballet, 118; as stars, 20th centur
y, 129. See also Balanchine, George (Georgi Balanchivadze); Fokine, Mikhail; Petipa, Marius
Classical and neoclassical ballet, 92, 118–19, 123, 196–202. See also Balanchine, George (Georgi Balanchivadze); body image issues; Petipa, Marius; specific Classical ballerinas
Cléopâtre, 124
Clermont, Louis, Comte de, 29
Cocteau, Jean, ix
The Code of Terpsichore (Blasis), 10
Comédie-Française, 36, 41
Condé, Louis Henri de Bourbon, prince de, 29
Copeland, Misty, 195–97
Corneille, Pierre, 11
Le Corsaire (Saint-Georges), 79
courtly ballet, 4–13
Crimson and Clover (Prince), 197
Croce, Arlene, 145–46
Cross, Victor, 141
Dacier, Émile, 34
d’Ambert, Paul, 80
Dancer (Degas), 69–70
Dancer Transition Resource Centre, 186–87, 190–91
Dancer with Long Hair Bowing (Degas), 68
d’Annunzio, Gabriele, 124
Dauberval, Jean, 37, 39, 40
de Acosta, Mercedes, 125
Debussy, Claude, 124
de Charry, Paul, 64–65
Degas, Edgar, 61, 62–67, 68–70, 216n33
Delisle, Mlle, 18–19
de Mille, Agnes, 2, 126–27
de Mont, Elie, 64
Desmarest, Henri, 23
Despréaux, Jean-Étienne, 37, 43–44
de Villard, Nina, 65
Devonshire, Duke and Duchess of, 31
Diaghilev, Sergei, 118–19, 121, 123, 131
Didelot, Charles-Louis, 117
Don Quixote (Balanchine), 144–45
d’Orléans, Philippe, 18, 22
Doubrovska, Felia, 131–32
dual femininity, of ballet, 1–4
Dumoulin, David, 26
Dupré, Émilie, 18
Dupré, Louis, 26
The Dying Swan (Fokine), 127, 128
eating disorders. See body image issues
Eklof, Svea, 166–67, 176–77, 188
Elssler, Fanny, 54, 118
Emarot, Célestine (Marguerite-Adélaïde), 72–74, 80, 83, 87–89, 90
Ballerina Page 23
