Dance Anecdotes: Stories from the Worlds of Ballet, Broadway, the Ballroom, and Modern Dance

Esteemed dance critic Aloff offers up a delicious and provocative pastiche of anecdotes from the world of dance. She describes it as "the kind of collection that one might pick up in a country inn on a rainy day and while away an hour browsing through," which is too modest: the book is easy to pick up but hard to put down. Those who want salacious gossip will have to look elsewhere; Aloff eschews the "smirking delights of shaudenfreude,"including only stories she "would want to tell... to someone [she] cared for." The stories are insightful, witty, occasionally juicy and often dark. Aloff is delightfully subjective and partial in her choices. There are dancers and choreographers represented, of course—Petipa, Pavlova, Balanchine, Nureyev, Graham and Astaire. But other artists, such as Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky, Dickens, Colette and Dave Barry (yes, Dave Barry) also figure in these tales. This volume is destined to be bedside reading for those fond of backstage insight and intrigue. (May)