An essential reference on Balanchine technique – Now in PAPER!
“Even the general reader will be rewarded with clarity, humor, and countless insights into Balanchine’s sensibility and personality . . . an invaluable and highly practical record of how Balanchine did what he did.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Describing Schorer’s book as encyclopedic is no understatement. Every single element of technique as Balanchine taught it is covered.”—Raritan
When still a young dancer in the New York City Ballet, Suki Schorer was chosen by George Balanchine to lecture, demonstrate, and teach—he recognized in her that rare dancer who not only performs superbly but can also successfully pass along what she knows to others. In Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique, she commits to paper the fruit of her twenty-four-year collaboration with Balanchine in a close examination of his technique for teachers, scholars, and advanced students of the ballet.
Schorer discusses the crucial work at the barre as well as center work, port de bras, pointework, jumps, partnering, and more. Her recollections of her own tutelage under Balanchine and her brilliant use of scores of his remarks about dancing and dancers lend both authority and intimacy to this extraordinary analysis of Balanchine’s legacy to the future of dance.
Abundantly illustrated throughout with instructional photographs featuring members of the New York City Ballet, this book will serve as an indispensable testament to Balanchine’s ideas on technique and performance.
