Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet from Itself

A reckoning with one of our most beloved art forms, whose past and present are shaped by gender, racial, and class inequities--and a look inside the fight for its future

Every day, in dance studios all across America, legions of little children line up at the barre to take ballet class. This time in the studio shapes their lives, instilling lessons about gender, power, bodies, and their place in the world both in and outside of dance.

In Turning Pointe, journalist Chloe Angyal captures the intense love for ballet that so many dancers feel, while also grappling with its devastating shortcomings: the power imbalance of an art form performed mostly by women, but dominated by men; the impossible standards of beauty and thinness; and the racism that keeps so many people of color out of ballet. As the rigid traditions of ballet grow increasingly out of step with the modern world, a new generation of dancers is confronting these issues head on, in the studio and on stage. For ballet to survive the twenty-first century and forge a path into a more socially just future, this reckoning is essential.

Author: Chloe Angyal
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Published: 07/11/2023
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 8.27h x 5.60w x 0.84d
ISBN13: 9781645036715
ISBN10: 1645036715
BISAC Categories:
- Performing Arts | Dance | Classical & Ballet
- Social Science | Feminism & Feminist Theory
- Social Science | Popular Culture

About the Author
Chloe Angyal is a journalist from Sydney, Australia. She is a senior editor at VICE News and her writing about politics and culture has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. She lives in the Iowa City area.