Grace Under Pressure: Passing Dance Through Time

by Barbara Newman

A critic and writer on dance for well over twenty years, Barbara Newman has gone in search of teachers and coaches, directors, choreographers and stagers former dancers who had turned the focus of their own experience on others to explain the state of ballet today. Among leaders of the dance world the author interviewed were Suki Schorer, Helgi Tomasson, Mark Morris, Violette Verdy and 14 other artists whose work she knew and respected, most of them active outside of New York and London. Newman is not interested in dance as an aesthetic abstraction, and the people who answered her questions were not speaking theoretically. On the contrary, her speculation and their responses bring an elusive subject down to earth, illuminating a process that reaches back in history and forward to today, though its dreams are of a world no one can imagine.

480 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In trying to answer her own concerns about the state of dance in the 1990s, over a period of several years Barbara Newman interviewed dancers, teachers and practitioners and digested their responses into this book. I must be honest and say that the chapters I enjoyed the most were the lengthy introductory ones to each section written by Barbara herself. With neither hesitation nor censure she puts voice to many of the issues that lay just beneath the surface of ballet in particular in that period and these form the basis of the discussion she draws out of her interviewees; some of those issues are still bones of contention or disatisfaction today. She writes confidently and knowledgeably, drawing on a long personal history of watching, thinking and writing about dance; we feel in safe hands as she probes below the surface and tries to get at what makes dancers and teachers tick and how, why and what are the issues that affect the production and reception of dance over and through time. I admit I never find transcribed conversation that easy to follow and I read those chapters with less fluency than the author's own; but the very nature of spontaneous speech committed to paper makes the comparison with Barbara's own rigorously written, interrogated and edited contribution an unfair one. But overall a fascinating and insightful read and I shall be looking out for a copy of her earlier book, Striking a Balance, after this. Highly recommend.