RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewBentley, who danced under Balanchine’s direction at the New York City Ballet for a decade in the 1970s and ’80s, tells a history that is as vivid and poetic as the dance itself ... it is an introspective nod to the life lessons taught through movement, told from the perspective of a young ballerina ... I felt the spirit of the movements through Bentley’s descriptive prose. She weaves in impressive detail about the actual technique of ballet, articulating the dancer’s physical experience for the reader ... Reading Bentley’s Serenade made me feel as alive as I felt on the stage the moment that I fell in love with ballet: with its grounded fantasy, physical demands, intellectual challenge, structure and beauty ... a book that will delight balletomanes for generations to come; but it will also appeal to those newer to the dance world, with its delicate balance of personal memoir, rarefied elegance, history of the arts and pure human interest.
Laura Jacobs
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewJacobs’s book opens the door, offering a meticulous introduction to the art form and welcoming readers to have a seat and stay a while. Jacobs makes no assumptions about the reader’s pre-existing knowledge of ballet, but rather starts at the very beginning, much as dancers do each day, with its basic foundations. She provides a study of the five foot positions, narrated alongside a history dating back to the French court in the 1500s and tracing ballet’s centuries-long evolution, without lingering so long on any one era that she loses the reader in academic prose. It’s the perfect balance of historical context and cultural relevance ... Written like a true dancer.
Henry Alford
PositiveThe New York TimesIt all began with a writing assignment for The New York Times on the topic of Zumba ... Alford was so hooked that he embraced \'waking up at 6:30 two days a week so that I could hustle up to 14th Street to shake it shake it shake it like a Polaroid\'...equal parts memoir and cultural history ... With each chapter, Alford draws important contrasts between the past and the present while examining how dance infiltrates every aspect of our lives — from social entree, to emotion and release, to religion and spirituality, to politics ... interweaves heartwarming and hilarious anecdotes about his deep dive into all things dance.
