"Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet-the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don't see from the orchestra circle"--

Anna Roux was a professional dancer who followed the man of her dreams from Paris to Missouri. There, alone with her biggest fears - imperfection, failure, loneliness - she spirals down anorexia and depression till she weighs a mere eighty-eight pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted as a patient at 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house where pale, fragile women with life-threatening eating disorders live. Women like Emm, the veteran; quiet...

"Inspiring, revealing, and deeply relatable, Being a Ballerina is a firsthand look at the realities of life as a professional ballet dancer. Through episodes from her own career, Gavin Larsen describes the forces that drive a person to study dance; the daily balance that dancers navigate between hardship and joy; and the dancer's continual quest to discover who they are as a person and as an artist. Starting with her arrival as a young beginner at...

A behind-the-scenes look at the world of dance as seen through the eyes of a talented young dancer on the brink of success.

With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. Marie, warm and soft,...

"Alicia was born to dance. From the moment she slips on pointe shoes for the first time, she's determined to become a professional ballerina. A few years later, Alicia moves from Cuba to the United States to follow her dreams. Then, Alicia begins to lose her sight. How can a ballerina dance if she can't see where she's going? Stuck in bed and only able to practice with her fingertips, Alicia doesn't give up. She finds a way to get back on stage, dancing...

From one of the most brilliant and audacious choreographers of modern time, this is the exuberant tale of a young dancer's rise to the pinnacle of the performing arts world, and the triumphs and perils of creating work on his own terms--and staying true to himself.self.

What is life like for a dancer when they can no longer dance? Inspired by the life of Merrill Ashley's departure from the New York City Ballet as an acclaimed principal dancer, this captures the poignancy of this life turning point.

When she discovers a diary of a former lover, a ballerina recalls a summer affair filled with both happiness and tragedy. Marie is an accomplished ballet dancer haunted by her tragic youthful affair with a shy, handsome student. Her memories of the rocky shores of Stockholm's outer archipelago mingle with scenes from her gloomy present, most of them set in the dark backstage environs of the theater where she works.

"A critical biography of Alexei Ratmansky--the most significant international classical choreographer of our day--written with his full cooperation and the support of American Ballet Theatre, the company of which he is resident choreographer"--