Ballet: The Definitive Illustrated Story

STORIES AND ILLUSTRATION ARE EXCELLENT

I absolutely adore this book and it brings such insight and depth for me to take to my classes.

Beautiful book! I highly recommend!

The quality of the book is very good, lots of illustrations, timelines, history of the ballet from the begining to the modern times.

Elegantly designed book with gorgeous photography. The person I gave it to cried when she opened it.My only complaint was that the book was thrown a box with no padding or wrapping and was slightly damaged on the spine when I received it.

Beautiful coffee table sized book that serves as a perfect introduction to all aspects of ballet performance. A fan of Swan Lake for years, I have recently become interested in expanding my knowledge of ballet. This book is exactly what I was looking for. It is a well illustrated, informative and entertaining look at the basic history of ballet. It explores major ballets, choreographers, composers, dancers, dance companies and venues as well as historical trends and changes in the art of ballet through the years. While no means all encompassing, it nevertheless covers from "Beginnings Of Ballet" thru "Ballet Today" and is a perfect starting point for a novice ballet fan that provides the information to help navigate and further explore this beautiful art form. Highly recommended!

Well written and well illustrated.

This is a visually beautiful book. I found it at the local library and wanted to add my own copy to my collection of ballet and dance books. It is a large, well-produced book with lots of great photos. However, it should really be noted that this is a very British-centered account of the history of ballet. I've long said that only the British would propose that Frederick Ashton is an equal to George Balanchine in the history of dance or the development of 20th Century ballet. And that is the Anglophile approach taken by this book.Balanchine is represented, of course, but most of the photos of his work are from performances by the Royal Ballet and companies other than New York City Ballet. Even the performance photos of NYCB dancers are from performances at Covent Garden. I suppose this is to be expected from a British book with a forward by Royal Ballet star Viviana Durante. But one would barely be aware that American Ballet Theatre even existed! Even the work of Antony Tudor and Kenneth McMillan, who had relationships with ABT (Tudor created the most significant of his works for them) is glossed over, never mind Jerome Robbins or Agnes DeMille.Similarly, while there are a number of mentions of the Kirov and Bolshoi, the focus on Russia is more Petipa and Ballets Russes. Not much about France, Denmark, Cuba or the rise of Latin and Asian dancers who are now major stars in many ballet companies with international rosters. We get a lot about Markova, Fonteyn, Rambert, and deValois, with little or nothing about Gregory, Kirkland, McBride or Farrell.Buy this book for a collection of nicely-reproduced historical and contemporary images of dancers, costume and set design, and significant ballets from court ballet through Romantic, Classical and 20th Century ballet, with mentions of other dance figures like Duncan, Graham and Ailey. If you want a truly accurate and inclusive pictorial history of ballet, this is not it.