Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet

Name: Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet
Brand: Random House Trade
SKU: SP-9780812968743
Price: 33.00 USD
Availability: InStock

$33.00

Product Variants

Brief Description:
Originally published in hardcover: New York: Random House, 2010.

Marc Notes:
Copyright date: 2010.;Includes bibliographical references (p. [551]-612) and index.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Masters and Traditions -- Part 1. France and the Classical Origins of Ballet -- Chapter 1. Kings of Dance -- Chapter 2. The Enlightenment and the Story Ballet -- Chapter 3. The French Revolution in Ballet -- Chapter 4. Romantic Illusions and the Rise of the Ballerina -- Chapter 5. Scandinavian Orthodoxy: The Danish Style -- Chapter 6. Italian Heresy: Pantomime, Virtuosity, and Italian Ballet -- Part 2. Light from the East: Russian Worlds of Art -- Chapter 7. Tsars of Dance: Imperial Russian Classicism -- Chapter 8. East Goes West: Russian Modernism and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes -- Chapter 9. Left Behind? Communist Ballet from Stalin to Brezhnev -- Chapter 10. Alone in Europe: The British Moment -- Chapter 11. The American Century I: Russian Beginnings -- Chapter 12. The American Century II: The New York Scene -- Epilogue: The Masters Are Dead and Gone -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- Illustration Credits.

Biographical Note:
Jennifer Homans was a professional dancer trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, American Ballet Theatre, and The School of American Ballet. She performed with the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet, the San Francisco Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Currently the dance critic for The New Republic, she has written for The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Review of Books, and The Australian. She earned her B.A. at Columbia University and her Ph.D. in modern European history at New York University, where she is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence.

Review Quotes:
"The only truly definitive history of the most impossibly fantastic art form, ballet . . . an eloquent and lasting elegy to an unlasting art."-- The New York Times Book Review

"A delight to read, massively informed yet remarkably agile . . . The story of ballet offers a singular perspective on the evolution of our culture: a fascinating mirror on the arts. Nowhere is this narrative told more amply and compellingly than in Jennifer Homans's triumphant Apollo's Angels."-- The Washington Post

"Here is a book of immense ambition--a one-volume history of ballet--and of considerable accomplishment. Jennifer Homans, whom we know primarily as The New Republic's provocative dance critic, shows herself to be both dogged and graceful as a historian--a rare and welcome combination of qualities."-- The New York Review of Books

"Intellectually rigorous, beautifully written, brilliantly structured."-- San Francisco Chronicle

"Magnificent . . . [a] monumental work." --The Boston Globe

"Each page of this luminous work delights, enlightens and beckons. Every dancer should live with this book, of course, but every person who loves literature and history, is word-struck and story-addicted, should give themselves a treat with Apollo's Angels. Treasure this treasure." --Jacques d'Amboise

"This is a wonderful book about how ballet evolved. Written by a gifted dancer, Apollo's Angels is dance history seen from the inside. The wonder to me is how much this accessible, beautifully-crafted book reveals about the times and places in which ballets were made; it makes culture come alive."--Richard Sennett, author of The Craftsman

"A dancer who is also a historian--who ever dreamed of such an improbable creature? But here is Jennifer Homans and her indispensable book. She puts the understanding of ballet on a whole new footing. Finally the delicacies of ballet have been restored to the indelicacies of history, and the art seems even more wondrous for it. Apollo's Angels is an enlightenment, a remarkable feat of scholarship and sensibility, an affecting mixture of criticism and devotion, an intellectual joy."--Leon Wieseltier

Reading Line:
10 Best Books The New York Times Book Review 2010 National bestseller

Publisher Marketing:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully told, Apollo's Angels--the first cultural history of ballet ever written--is a groundbreaking work. From ballet's origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France's Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. In the twentieth century, émigré dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance. Jennifer Homans, a historian, critic, and former professional ballerina, wields a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. Her admiration and love for the ballet, as Entertainment Weekly notes, brings "a dancer's grace and sure-footed agility to the page."

Review Citations:

New York Times Book Review 12/04/2011 pg. 72 (EAN 9780812968743, Paperback)
Publishers Weekly 02/28/2011 (EAN 9781452601083, Compact Disc) - *Starred Review
Audio File 08/01/2011 pg. 26 (EAN 9781452601083, Compact Disc)
Kirkus Reviews 09/15/2010 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Booklist 11/01/2010 pg. 15 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
Publishers Weekly 11/01/2010 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
New York Times Book Review 12/12/2010 pg. 10 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
New York Review of Books 12/09/2010 pg. 25 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
New York Times Book Review 11/28/2010 pg. 1 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
New York Times Book Review 12/05/2010 pg. 60 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/05/2010 pg. 29 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Entertainment Weekly 12/17/2010 pg. 82 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Entertainment Weekly 01/07/2011 pg. 73 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Choice 06/01/2011 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/08/2010 pg. 29 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Books & Culture 12/27/2011 pg. 27 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)
Wilson Nonfiction Catalog 04/11/2019 (EAN 9781400060603, Hardcover)

Author: Homans, Jennifer
Publisher: Random House Trade
Binding: Paperback
Pub Date: 2011-11-29
BISAC: Performing Arts / Dance / Classical & Ballet|History / Social History|Performing Arts / Dance / History & Criticism
Subjects: History|Dance|Ballet
Weight: 1.8 lbs
ISBN: 9780812968743
ASIN: -
SKU: SP-9780812968743