All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine

by Terry Teachout

Twenty years after his death, George Balanchine still dominates the world of ballet. Not only have his works been danced by the New York City Ballet continuously since 1948, but they also have been performed by more than two dozen other companies throughout the world. In clear and elegant writing, Terry Teachout brings to life the dramatic story of George Balanchine, a Russian émigré who fell in love with American culture, married four times and kept a mistress on the side, and transformed the art of ballet forever.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

185 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Terry Teachout is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the chief culture critic of Commentary. His latest book, "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong," will be published on December 2 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He blogs about the arts at www.terryteachout.com. His other books include "The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken," "All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine," and "A Terry Teachout Reader." "

Reviews

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, short introduction to the man who remade ballet:


“Most American intellectuals are hopelessly provincial when it comes to dance. Were it not so, Balanchine would be fully as legendary as Stravinsky …. But thanks to [Arlene Croce]…the New Yorker was paying deeply informed attention to dance when most so-called highbrow magazines were otherwise occupied. When I came to New York City [from Oklahoma], I had yet to see a single dance by Balanchine…, but I had been *reading* about them in the New Yorker, and the pieces I was reading were set within a wide frame of cultural reference. Any art form that can inspire criticism like this, I thought, is worth knowing about. And so it was.”

(From a Teachout piece published in the 2000 New York Times Book Review.)

[Irina Dumitrescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teachout begins his short biography of George Balanchine by describing his first, spellbound experience of watching a Balanchine ballet. He wrote this book, he explains, because it was what he wanted after seeing this unexpected performance. "Why hasn't anybody ever told me about this? And what kind of man made it?" were the thoughts running through his head.

I had an identical experience when I first went to the NYCB, and this is exactly the book I wanted then. I wondered about the choreographer who had made ballet so modern, so unlike the frilly tutus and unrelenting prettiness of ballet as I thought I knew it. Teachout's moves rapidly through Balanchine's long life, but he manages to cover a lot of ground, from Mr. B's difficult childhood in Russia to his death from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, to the legacy of his dances. Teachout succeeds in describing what was fresh and important about Balanchine's dances in vocabulary an intelligent layman can understand, and although his admiration for his subject is obvious, he does not shy away from describing the more scandalous aspects of Balanchine's life. The art and the gossip both help Teachout describe the creative process of a twentieth-century legend.

[Joe Meyers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant critical biography of the choreographer George Balanchine. Author Terry Teachout came late to the work of Balanchine (and ballet) so he writes in a down to earth style that is very attractive. He takes us through the life and work of Balanchine in a tightly written form of less than 200 pages. Teachout makes a good case for Balanchine being a major artist equivalent to anyone working in other forms such as painting and writing. The book is slightly melancholy about the decline in ballet’s popularity after the boom years of the 1970s but Teachout predicts that Balanchine’s influence and work will endure.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. The emphasis that stood out for me was the author's descriptions of the ballets. In most of the memoirs I have read they don't go into much detail. I loved his descriptions and his explanations of various movements. He put the explanation in context with Ballanchine's past experience, and then it made so much sense! It probably would have helped if he had more dance experience.

[Susan Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

After seeing so many of his ballets at SFBallet in SF, this is my first biography of American choreography star George Balanchine. It is well thought-out and easy to follow. It is clear how he transformed the world of ballet in the mid-20th century.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read for Balanchine ballet fans

[Marissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s hard to know how to review a book by a dear friend who died suddenly earlier this year, which you didn’t get around to reading till after his death. I was always aware that George Balanchine was one of the artists in Terry Teachout’s personal pantheon, but, not being familiar with Balanchine’s work and not sure whether a short biography was the best way to appreciate a choreographer, I never picked up All in the Dances. Then Terry died, and a few months later I happened to read a few other nonfiction books about ballet, and it suddenly seemed absurd that I hadn’t read his.

And in some ways, reading this book was like having my old friend back again. The style and voice are what I recognize from his theater reviews and prolific arts blogging on About Last Night. On a sentence-by-sentence level, it’s easy to read, conversational, journalistic. On a deeper level, it is animated by an uncompromising adherence to high artistic standards and the cultural pantheon. (Readers who have a low tolerance for pronouncements like “When I assure [my friends] that Balanchine was every bit as important as, say, Matisse, they look at me as though I’d tried to tell them that Raymond Chandler was as important as Proust” might want to skip this one.)

That’s why Terry so revered Balanchine: he was a truly innovative genius, making modernist ballets that, while not telling what we traditionally think of as stories, manage to evoke complex emotions in the viewer. All in the Dances is less valuable for its timeline of Balanchine’s life (you can get that from Wikipedia) than for Terry’s descriptions and assessments of his most important ballets. For instance, on Serenade: “Though the soloists each have their moments of glory, what one remembers above all is the unceasing sweep of the corps, swirling atop Tchaikovsky’s music like a flock of doves. It’s as if the soul of a nineteenth-century story ballet had somehow been lifted out of its rigid framework of plot and given a life of its own.”

There are a few passages where I squinted at the page and wished that Terry was still around so that I could quibble with him about them in person. (Terry may have been known as a conservative critic, but he was a very open-minded man and never minded having intelligent disputes with his younger, more liberal friends.) Early on, he writes that Balanchine “led a life outwardly uneventful, at least by the standards of the best-seller list.” But, I mean, the man was married four times to four different ballerinas, and later on we get the sentence “Well into middle age Balanchine hungered, in Allegra Kent’s tart phrase, to add more Lolitas to his ballerina gallery.” If this isn’t the stuff of the best-seller list—sex, lust, power, all in a heightened artistic milieu—I don’t know what is!

Of course, this book came out nearly twenty years ago, and I do think there is room for a reconsideration of Balanchine’s personal life and attitude toward women in light of #MeToo and such. I don’t think Terry would’ve been the right person to write that book, nor would he have wanted to. On the other hand, I don’t think we will ever get a more accessible yet intelligent, lucid yet impassioned consideration of Balanchine’s major works. The ballet troupe in my town is a “Balanchine company” and now I am starting to have some idea of what I’ve missed out on for the last decade-plus. I’ll have to attend next time they do a Balanchine program. I’ll have to attend, and mourn my friend, and thank him.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I consider myself to be a balletomaniac...
Short bio of Mr B
"Martha Graham said that watching George Balanchine choreograph a ballet was like 'watching light through a prism.' The music passes through him, and in the same natural yet marvelous way that a prism refracts light, he refracts music into dance."

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent biography of George Balanchine. I like this one because Teachout, a drama critic for The Wall Street Journal, breaks down his choreography and finds meaning in much of his patterns of movement. Pretty cool.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this about 2 years ago. A reflective look into a brilliant and deep artistic mind, although not a perfect person. Balanchine was like a god to the dance world. I nice escape into a subculture that I brushed up against as a young woman, but not on this grande scale! He truly was a gift.

[Barbara Heisey · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Balanchine was a great ballet choreographer. His masterpieces are on par with dozens of 20th century masters in other arts, says Teachout. But ballet companies have done a poor job of reprising his legacy. His is an important and heroic legacy of artistic excellence.

[Laynie D. Weaver · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brief but poignant. A nice summary of the evolution of American ballet and its stars on the stage, driven by the gifted Balanchine.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Came home from seeing the NYCB at SPAC, wanting to read about Balanchine & his ballets. Short, well written and balanced

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[Ruth Paterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Balanchine's choreography so much I had to read an entire book about it:)