Kirjahaku

The dancers profiled in First Position represent the pinnacle of their art over the last century. Author Toba Singer polled scores of dance critics, dance teachers and professors, and active and retired professional dancers to create a list that represents the best of the various styles of ballet from the last hundred years. The result is a collective biography that introduces the reader to dancers both with household names and those known mostly to ballet aficioinados. Profiled dancers include Carlos Acosta, Alicia Alonso, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Erik Bruhn, Lazaro Carreno, Margot Fonteyn, Carla Fracci, Gelsey Kirkland, Li Cunxin, Muriel Maffre, Natalia Makarova, Arthur Mitchell, Rudolf Nureyev, Anna Pavlova, and Maya Plisetskaya.

Written records of Alonso’s work are scarce, yet Toba Singer’s quest to spotlight his seminal role in the development of the modern ballet canon yields key material: pre-blockade tapes from Lincoln Center, Spanish-language sources from the Museum of Dance in Havana, and interviews with the ballet master himself alongside a broad range of friends, relatives, and collaborators from throughout his long career, including his ex-wife, Alicia, a famous ballerina in her own right.