



Don't Think, Dear
On Loving and Leaving Ballet
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- 10,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
Can ballet ever be reconciled with feminist ideals?
'Beautiful, difficult, and compelling.' VANITY FAIR
'Don’t think, dear,' said Balanchine. 'Just do.'
For centuries, being a ballerina has been synonymous with being beautiful, thin, obedient and feminine. It is the crucible of womanhood, together with the harassment, physical abuse and eating disorders endemic at top schools. Can we abide this in a post #MeToo world?
Weaving together her own time at America’s most elite ballet school with the lives of renowned ballerinas throughout history, Alice Robb interrogates what it means to perform ballet today. She confronts the all-consuming nature of the form: the obsessive and dangerous practices to perfect the body, the embrace of submission and the idealisation of suffering.
Yet ballet also gifts its dancers ‘brains in their toes’, a way to fully inhabit their bodies and a sanctuary of control away from the pressures of the outside world. Perhaps it is time to reimagine its liberating potential.
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'Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, the book weaves [Robb’s] early experiences as a dancer with those of her contemporaries, and of famous ballerinas… Don’t Think, Dear is powered by a fundamental love of the art form while exposing the toxic culture that runs through it.' GUARDIAN
'[Robb’s] timely book is a critical yet personal examination of classical ballet – a performing art highly dependent on the talent of women – filtered through the lens of 21st-century feminism… she brings a welcome academic rigour to a subject clearly born of deeply held emotions.' THE TIMES
'A study of an obsession remarkable for its nuance and insight… It might be easy… to assume that Don’t Think, Dear is Robb’s litany of grievances about a demanding art form in which she failed to flourish. Rather, it is a book about love, even if that love is ultimately unrequited… fascinating.' TLS
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Robb (Why We Dream: The Transformative Power of Our Nightly Journey) recounts her tenure as a student at the School of American Ballet in this insightful memoir. Robb always dreamed of becoming a professional ballerina and was offered a spot at the school, which is noted for its low admission rate, in the early 2000s, but a few years later she was expelled due to her lack of progress. Robb interweaves her story with those of four classmates, who all eventually left ballet. The narrative excels in detailing the physical demands of ballet, such as the preparation for a jump from a deep plié, the overly familiar touches of a pas de deux partner or dance master, and the suppressed pain that simmers en pointe. But when Robb poses meaty questions—such as why New York City Ballet artistic director and SAB cofounder George Balanchine's protégés remained loyal to him despite his history of paternalism, or if her idea of femininity changed after leaving ballet—there are no clear-cut answers. Even so, Robb provides searing glimpses of life behind the curtain, and captures her appreciation for ballet's "hyperfeminine trappings." This will deepen readers' understanding of the insular world of ballet.