Reading Dance A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras

"Robert Gottlieb's immense sampling of the dance literature - by far the largest such project ever attempted - is both inclusive, to the extent that inclusivity is possible when dealing with so vast a field, and personal: the result of decades of reading." "It limits itself to material within the experience of today's general readers, avoiding, for instance, academic historical writing and treatises on technique. Its earliest subjects are those nineteenth-century works and choreographers that still resonate with dance lovers today: Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake; Bournonville and Petipa." "With its huge range of content accompanied by the anthologist's incisive running commentary, Reading Dance will be a source of pleasure and instruction for anyone who loves dance."--BOOK JACKET.

Robert Gottlieb has been editor in chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker. He has edited books by such dance luminaries as Margot Fonteyn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, and Lincoln Kirstein. He served for many years on the board of directors of New York City Ballet, working closely with Kirstein and Balanchine, and is the author of George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker. He has been for a decade the dance critic of the New York Observer, and writes frequently for The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. His previously anthology, Reading Jazz, was acclaimed as a unique contribution to the jazz literature, and his Reading Lyrics (edited with Robert Kimball) has become a treasured resource for lovers of American popular song.