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A Queer History of the Ballet
Contributor(s): Stoneley, Peter (Author)
ISBN: 0415972809     ISBN-13: 9780415972802
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE:   $42.70  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: November 2006
Qty:
Annotation: "A Queer History of the Ballet "is the first book-length study of ballet's queerness. It theorizes the queer potential of the ballet look, and provides historical analyses of queer artists and spectatorships. It demonstrates that ballet was a crucial means of coming to visibility, of evolving and articulating a queer consciousness in periods when it was dangerous and illegal to be homosexual. It also shows that ballet continues to be a key element of the dance cultures through which queerness is explored. The book moves from the 19th century through the post-modern era, bringing together an important array of creative figures and movements, including Romantic ballet; Tchaikovsky; Diaghilev; Genet; Fonteyn; New York City Ballet; Neumeier; Bourne; Bausch; and Morris. It discusses the making and performance history of key works, including "La Sylphide, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty," and "Swan Lake,"
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A Queer History of the Ballet "will be especially useful to students and scholars involved in the growing number of courses on queer culture, theatre studies, dance history, gender studies, and cross-disciplinary approaches to literature. It is written in a lively, clear style that will make it accessible to the non-academic reader who has an interest in queer and/or dance history.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Dance - Classical & Ballet
- Performing Arts | Theater - General
Dewey: 792.808
LCCN: 2006011583
Physical Information: 0.51" H x 5.6" W x 8.54" (0.63 lbs) 224 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Designed for students, scholars and general readers with an interest in dance and queer history, A Queer History of the Ballet focuses on how, as makers and as audiences, queer men and women have helped to develop many of the texts, images, and legends of ballet.

Presenting a series of historical case studies, the book explores the ways in which, from the nineteenth century into the twentieth, ballet has been a means of conjuring homosexuality - of enabling some degree of expression and visibility for people who were otherwise declared illegal and obscene.

Studies include:

  • the perverse sororities of the Romantic ballet
  • the fairy in folklore, literature, and ballet
  • Tchaikovsky and the making of Swan Lake
  • Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and the emergence of queer modernity
  • the formation of ballet in America
  • the queer uses of the prima ballerina
  • Genet's writings for and about ballet.

Also including a consideration of how ballet's queer tradition has been memorialized by such contemporary dance-makers as Neumeier, Bausch, Bourne, and Preljocaj, this is an essential book in the study of ballet and queer history.