Shapes of American Ballet

In Shapes of American Ballet: Teachers and Training before Balanchine, author Jessica Zeller offers a new telling of the first few decades of the twentieth century as critical period for ballet's growth in America. This first-of-its-kind account of early twentieth century American ballet is situated against a bustling New York City backdrop, where mass immigration through Ellis Island brought balet from European and Russian opera houses into contact with a variety of American forms and sensibilities. Zeller describes how ballet from celebrated Euro-Russian lineages was performed in vaudeville and blended with American popular dance styles, developing new characteristics as it responded to the American economy. Shapes of American Ballet delves into ballet's struggle to define itself during this rich early twentieth century period, and it sheds new light on ballet's development of an American identity before Balanchine. -- from back cover.