The Ballet Book: A Young Person's Guide to Classical Dance

Susan Free teaches movement in the drama program at the University of
Toronto.

Ballet is the last thing one could or should learn from a book, and it
is unlikely that a “young person” would refer to a how-to picture
book to brush up their port de bras or anything else.

The book focuses on ballet technique. There are nice photographs to
support descriptions of positions and basic steps, but the language in
the descriptions is at once too sophisticated for young dancers and too
incomplete to really be of use. The book is problematic in other ways
too. For instance, the little girl in many of the photographs has an
incredible turnout (the rotation of the legs at the hips). While her
flexibility must make her popular with her ballet teachers, she may not
be an appropriate model for young dancers who, in imitating her, might
force their feet into an exaggerated and harmful turnout.

Although subtitled “A Young Person’s Guide to Classical Dance,”
this book is really an introduction to the mechanics of ballet and
little more. There is minimal discussion of ballet as an expressive and
creative art form, its relationship to music or theatre, or its history.
Other books provide a more useful and thorough introduction to ballet
technique. While this book might be minimally useful for dance teachers
or more mature students, it is not really appropriate for the “young
person” to whom it is ostensibly aimed. The Ballet Book serves as a
reminder that dance is an oral tradition and cannot be well taught by
books.