Overview

George Balanchine's arrival in the United States in 1933, it is widely thought, changed the course of ballet history by creating a bold neoclassical style that is celebrated as the first American manifestation of the art form. In Making Ballet American, author Andrea Harris challenges this narrative by revealing the complex social, cultural, and political forces that actually shaped the construction of American neoclassical ballet. Situating American ballet within a larger context of modernisms, the book examines critical efforts to craft new, modernist ideas about the relevance of classical dancing for American society and democracy. Through cultural and choreographic analysis, it illustrates the evolution of modernist ballet during a turbulent historical period. Ultimately, the book argues that the Americanization of Balanchine's neoclassicism was not the inevitable outcome of his immigration or his creative genius, but rather a far more complicated story that pivots on the question of modern art's relationship to America and the larger world.

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9780190265816

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Reviews

In Andrea Harris' riveting account of Making Ballet American Balanchine, Kirstein, and Denby did not turn away from politics at mid-century, as we have mistakenly believed, but rather created neoclassical ballet from an alert engagement with the crises of their time. An astonishing and lucid history, revisionist scholarship at its brilliant best! -Susan Manning, Northwestern University Making Ballet American is a remarkable tale of two men-Lincoln Kirstein, the brilliant apologist for ballet, and Edwin Denby, the poet of dance critics-who, together and separately, championed George Balanchine's ballet neoclassicism as the cynosure of American ballet. But the book's historical synthesis is even more gripping, focusing on how modernist artists and thinkers from all walks of American culture confronted the deep, underlying fears of the twentieth century: mass media's potential to create unthinking mobs, in the guise of fascism, totalitarianism, and even unbridled capitalism. At last, a critical intellectual history of twentieth-century ballet in America-one that is particularly resonant in our time, and full of irony, as individuals initially driven by countercultural and nonconformist values erect elite institutions guaranteed to quash alternative voices! -Joellen Meglin, Temple University With this book, her first, Harris (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) makes an important contribution to analyses of 20th-century American ballet. She positions American ballet, especially the neoclassical works of George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet, within broad international contexts--artistic, cultural, political, and social developments during the period from the Depression through the Cold War. Her method is to alternate chapters and interchapters. The chapters complicate the development of American ballet modernism by using detailed critical study of the writings of Balanchine's sponsor Lincoln Kirstein and dance critic Edwin Denby. The interchapters provide close readings of the American ballets Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Western Symphony (1954). These help anchor the more theoretical writing in specific danced examples. --Choice

"""In Andrea Harris' riveting account of Making Ballet American Balanchine, Kirstein, and Denby did not turn away from politics at mid-century, as we have mistakenly believed, but rather created neoclassical ballet from an alert engagement with the crises of their time. An astonishing and lucid history, revisionist scholarship at its brilliant best!""-Susan Manning, Northwestern University ""Making Ballet American is a remarkable tale of two men-Lincoln Kirstein, the brilliant apologist for ballet, and Edwin Denby, the poet of dance critics-who, together and separately, championed George Balanchine's ballet neoclassicism as the cynosure of American ballet. But the book's historical synthesis is even more gripping, focusing on how modernist artists and thinkers from all walks of American culture confronted the deep, underlying fears of the twentieth century: mass media's potential to create unthinking mobs, in the guise of fascism, totalitarianism, and even unbridled capitalism. At last, a critical intellectual history of twentieth-century ballet in America-one that is particularly resonant in our time, and full of irony, as individuals initially driven by countercultural and nonconformist values erect elite institutions guaranteed to quash alternative voices!""-Joellen Meglin, Temple University ""With this book, her first, Harris (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) makes an important contribution to analyses of 20th-century American ballet. She positions American ballet, especially the neoclassical works of George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet, within broad international contexts--artistic, cultural, political, and social developments during the period from the Depression through the Cold War. Her method is to alternate chapters and interchapters. The chapters complicate the development of American ballet modernism by using detailed critical study of the writings of Balanchine's sponsor Lincoln Kirstein and dance critic Edwin Denby. The interchapters provide close readings of the American ballets Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Western Symphony (1954). These help anchor the more theoretical writing in specific danced examples."" --Choice"

Author Information

Andrea Harris is Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Certified Movement Analyst.

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