04/26/2021
In this captivating debut, journalist Angyal mounts a thorough examination of classical ballet’s fraught history of racial, sexual, and class bias and the reckoning from within that’s pushing to change it. “If ballet survives,” she writes, “it will be because of the individuals and institutions who are demanding that it do better.” Drawing from interviews with the dancers, teachers, and artistic directors working to do just that, Angyal reveals the systemic inequality propping up a fragile ecosystem that, for over a century, has denied opportunities to Black dancers and those who don’t “look really, really fit.” However, in the past decade, she notes, dancers have been fighting back, filing harassment lawsuits and establishing such trailblazing companies as Ballez, which is “just what it sounds like... lesbians doing ballet.” While in the past, dancers learned “to physically submit, to disregard their feelings,” today—and even more so, Angyal notes, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests—they are speaking out against double standards favoring males, arbitrary rules about weight, and the lack of racial diversity in the industry. Timely and thought-provoking, this book is a must for ballet lovers and anyone interested in the cultural conversation. (May)
Groundbreaking…. Shining a frequently unflattering but hopeful light on the future of the art.”—Ms. Magazine
“In this captivating debut, journalist Angyal mounts a thorough examination of classical ballet’s fraught history of racial, sexual, and class bias and the reckoning from within that’s pushing to change it… Timely and thought-provoking, this book is a must for ballet lovers and anyone interested in the cultural conversation.”—Publishers Weekly
“Incisive and unsparing…. an important read for ballet lovers and an essential part of any conversation moving forward.”—Boston Globe
“Angyal’s reporting is thorough and compelling, and some of the stories she relates are heartbreaking…. Required reading for anyone who loves ballet and cares about its future.”—Library Journal
“A vigorously reported critique of common policies and practices in the ballet world.”—Kirkus Reviews
“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
“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
“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
"Angyal’s Turning Pointe is a vital industry manifesto for a new era in ballet."—New York Journal of Books
"If you want an immaculately researched and piercing look at ballet and its costs, look no further. Truly, I inhaled it. Heavy stuff, but told with so much skill and energy."—Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life
“Turning Pointe isn’t always an easy read, but it’s an important one. And it’s one whose message is, ultimately, of hope.”—Seattle Times
04/01/2021
As the song said, everything was beautiful at the ballet. Offstage, however, there is another tune, one of jarring chords of racism, sexism, and elitism, at odds with the ethereal beauty onstage. After interviewing dancers, dance teachers, choreographers, doctors, parents of dancers, and others, journalist Angyal found that ballet "is cracking under the weight of multiple interlocking crises, some of them of its own making." Impossible standards of beauty and thinness, overwhelming whiteness in casting and choreography, and a workforce made up mainly of women but managed almost exclusively by men are some of the issues that threaten the existence of this beloved art form. Chapter titles—including "The Hidden Curriculum," "A Tolerance for Pain," "The Unbearable Whiteness of Ballet," and "Princes and Predators"—characterize some of the systemic problems that must be addressed if ballet is to survive. Change is coming, Angyal say, with many American ballet companies now pledging to become more inclusive in their training and hiring, and in the new works and repertoires they commission. Angyal's reporting is thorough and compelling, and some of the stories she relates are heartbreaking. A filmography and a bibliography will aid those who wish to delve deeper. VERDICT Required reading for anyone who loves ballet and cares about its future.—Carolyn M. Mulac, Chicago
2021-02-16
A journalist takes a hard look at social injustices in ballet and how to end them.
Angyal argues that as ballet schools and companies cope with Covid-19, they face a threat older than the pandemic. The ballet world is in crisis, “made fragile and brittle by years of inequality and rendered dysfunctional by sexism, racism, elitism, and a stubborn disregard for the physical and mental well-being of the dancers who make the art possible.” Many of the ills the author laments have been covered in some of the ballet books published since Joan Brady’s signal 1982 memoir The Unmaking of a Dancer: injuries, burnout, eating disorders, taunting of male dancers as “sissies,” and brutal treatment by Svengalis like George Balanchine. But Angyal substantially updates the story by highlighting persistent social injustices, such as relegating Black male dancers to “comic sidekick roles, the Mercutio to the white man’s Romeo,” and sidelining LGBTQ+ talent. She also shows how trailblazers have fought back with actions such as the founding of the Manhattan-based Ballez company for lesbian and gender-nonconforming dancers. Drawing on interviews with insiders who include artistic directors and principal dancers, the author is particularly insightful about companies’ “doublespeak” on issues like thinness. One psychiatrist noted that ballet masters—no longer able to tell dancers to lose weight without risking criticism—speak in code such as, “You need to be more ‘toned’.…Every dancer knows that means they have to lose five pounds.” Angyal slights some of the broader social and economic forces that have contributed to ballet’s problems, such as declining U.S. audiences for high culture and the role government regulators might play if discrimination or unfair labor practices are involved. However, she ends with clear, well-reasoned recommendations that schools and companies anywhere could adopt—a list that, in itself, might be the spark many need to make overdue changes.
A vigorously reported critique of common policies and practices in the ballet world.