Tagged with dancers
Tiny Pretty Things
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Dancing Through It
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Attitude!: Eight Young Dancers Come of Age at The Ailey School
Fishman follows eight high school dancers studying at The Ailey School, trying to discern what exactly talent is and what makes it go. She doesn't separately profile each student. Instead it's one narrative with themes (like eating disorders and weight, sexuality, race and friendship) explored by chapter. Although you can tell Fishman cares about her subjects, she manages not to get too sucked in. I like her researched but relatively casual approach.
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Dancer Daughter Traitor Spy
What a disappointment this book is. Great title, great elements--a clairvoyant teenage dancer from the USSR relocated to Brighton Beach--and there's not enough dance, the psychic moments are easy to miss, you don't care about the characters, and the whole spy/traitor thing--whatever. The one good part of the story is 1982-83 Brighton Beach. Also the cover is attractive.
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Painted Girls, the
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Bunheads
This novel about 19-year-old corps de ballet dancer Hannah Ward reminded me a little of the nun memoir Through the Narrow Gate because it was about the protagonist's struggle with the sacrifices required to please her god, in this case the artistic director of the "Manhattan Ballet."
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When the Stars Go Blue
Soledad is an 18-year-old Cuban-American dancer from Miami making plans to go to NYC and audition for ballet companies when she's presented with the opportunity to go pro with a drum and bugle corps. (Right? But it sounds like a really cool thing, and a great way to spend the summer after graduating from high school, not to mention with the hottie who suggested her for the gig.)
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Cranes Dance, the
When I left [my dying friend] Wendy's I walked across the park. The path I took when I was a student, when none of what has happened had happened.
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Another Way to Dance
This is the kind of thing I eat up--teenage dancer dealing with race issues. Vicki is enrolled in a competitive program at the School of American Ballet. The 14-year-old hestitantly leaves her divorcing parents and younger sister in New Jersey and spends the summer with her aunt (mother’s best friend, not sister) on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Well, she’s psyched to do it; she loves to dance, but it is daunting.