Turning Pointe

Angyal, a journalist and former dancer, raises the curtain and goes backstage to reveal why this beloved cultural tradition is imperiled. --Booklist Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet from Itself is a painstaking, and often painful, assessment of the troubling racialized, gendered, and classed lessons of classical ballet. Angyal's sharp analysis invites us to wonder how ballet might expand if it did not require broken toes, torn ligaments, starving dancers, or pink tights. This is the book for all of us who loved ballet but found it did not love us back. --Melissa Harris-Perry, Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University and cohost of System Check A vigorously reported critique of common policies and practices in the ballet world. --Kirkus Reviews The best art is not an escape for the audience, but a journey. It uses beauty incisively, and that is what Chloe Angyal's writing does. In her essential observations about her beloved ballet, she reminds us of the necessity of thinking critically, especially about that which we love the most. --Jamil Smith, journalist and contributor to Believe Me There's no question: Turning Pointe is a groundbreaking book that stands to shift the nature of ballet as we know it. The depth of reporting is astounding, inspiring, and necessary: Chloe Angyal doesn't just explore ballet, she examines it, holding up magnifying glasses and mirrors to the inequities and systemic issues that have persisted for too long, the innovation unfolding in studios and on stages, and the shattering of rigid tradition that today's ballet can't let stand. With Angyal's obvious passion for the art form and thoughtful, immersive conversations with sources from across the ballet world at the heart of this book, Turning Pointe is a must-read for any current or former dancer, dance parent, or individual who is interested in a vibrant, inclusive future of a classical art form. Turning Pointe reads like a reckoning--one that can truly change ballet for the better. --Rainesford Stauffer, author of An Ordinary Age This is the book I desperately needed as a teenage ballerina, when I mistakenly thought there was something wrong with me rather than ballet's culture. Having read it, I want to buy copies for every aspiring dancer, as well as the gatekeepers who most need to read it. Angyal reports with urgency and precision about what draws young dancers to ballet, and how it needs to change to keep them there. Turning Pointe is a long-overdue reckoning for an art form that excludes and injures its dancers as much as it dazzles them. --Ellen O'Connell Whittet, author of What You Become in Flight