Hello, and welcome to my new readers!
Allow me to re-introduce myself. I’m Chloe Angyal, a journalist and the author of Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet From Itself. Turning Pointe, which came out in May of this year, is a book about the future of ballet, and what needs to change if ballet is to become the safe, relevant, equitable art form that all dancers and ballet-lovers deserve.
If you’re here because you saw one of my essays quoted in The New York Times last week, you probably already have a sense of what you’ll find in Turning Pointe. It’s an argument for a ballet that treats dancers and other artists like people, and that puts people first. That doesn’t use preserving tradition or perpetuating the art form to excuse preventable suffering. That doesn’t turn away from abuse or discrimination because looking directly at them is too hard and uncomfortable. These don’t sound like radical ideas, and yet, the American ballet world has resisted them for decades, and continues to insist that this is simply how things are and need to be. Turning Pointe is a book about the cost of that attitude, to individual dancers and to the art form itself.
I have some good news about the book this week: it’s deeply discounted for the month of October. This month, if you buy the Kindle edition, it’ll cost you just $3.99. So if you buy it now for yourself or a friend (or an enemy, I’m not picky), you’ll save a lot of money and it’ll show up on your device instantly, so you can start reading right away.
And, if you’d like to hear me speak about this issues I cover in the book, and more, you can do that on October 20, when North Carolina State University dance program hosts me for one of its weekly lunchtime discussions. That event is free, virtual, and open to the public. All you have to do is register.
I hope you’ll pick up a copy of the book, whether you buy it or borrow it from your local library, and I hope to see you at the NC State event.
That’s it from me this week, and thanks for reading,
Chloe.