Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet [Paperback]

Jennifer Homans (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 29, 2011

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully told, Apollo’s Angels—the first cultural history of ballet ever written—is a groundbreaking work. From ballet’s origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France’s Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. In the twentieth century, émigré dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance. Jennifer Homans, a historian, critic, and former professional ballerina, wields a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. Her admiration and love for the ballet, as Entertainment Weekly notes, brings “a dancer’s grace and sure-footed agility to the page.”

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • LOS ANGELES TIMES • SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE • PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A Look Inside Apollo's Angels

Rubies Photo by Costas	Serenade Photo by Costas
Nutcracker Snowflakes Photo by Costas	Nikolaj Hübbe in La Sylphide Photo by Costas

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Holmes's magisterial history of ballet is even better in audio. Kirsten Potter has a deep, smooth, sensuous voice that sounds as cultivated as the art form she describes. With pacing that allows the listener to savor the musicality of former ballerina Holmes's sentences, their lulling alliteration and lively wit, Potter brings the ambitious study of ballet's 500-year history (and bleak prognostications for its future) to life. Potter's French accent could use a bit of work; it's clumsy and forced, but doesn't detract too much from the pleasure of this panoramic look at the art's singularity, the discipline it demands (in Holmes's phrase, it is "a grammar of movement"), and the liberation it allows. A Random hardcover. (Jan.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (November 29, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812968743
• ISBN-13: 978-0812968743
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.4 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #39 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Dance > Classical

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars misjudged December 24, 2010

By yan ek

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

From everything I heard and read prior to receiving and reading this book for myself I expected to be irritated by it. It is extremely well written and some obscure details the author brings out with great clarity. I enjoyed everything except the epilogue and even that is not as bad as what I'd feared. The author clearly thinks that the present moment in ballet is the final death knell. Print matter is supposed to be dead, the theatre is supposed to be dead, classical music is supposed to be dead... It is just too facile an assumption. Some of the points I agree with but cannot see them in such dire terms. Dancers have become universal in their technique and lots of "cookie cutter" dancers are manufactured. Some of this is very regrettable but it is the world we live in now. Globalization is not restricted in dance or anywhere else. Choreography certainly is not at the low ebb she suggests. There will not BE another Balanchine or Ashton. Get over it. So many interesting choreographers are working just now it is impossible to see enough to actually judge. Someone else will come up that grabs everyone's attention and for awhile everyone will love them and then think after that nothing they do is any good any longer. That is our fault as critics in not allowing them to develop freely and being patient in their choreographic life. Everyone wants the next great ballet!!! Great choreographers makes bad ballet sometimes but if even one is good that is enough.

When Balanchine, Ashton,Tudor and the other great lions of dance were creating it was a rare opportunity that the major voices in dance were invited in to make ballets for other companies. Balanchine created only a handful of works outside NYCB and the same is true for Ashton and the Royal.... Tudor left Rambert and London and devoted himself to life in New York. Times are different now as evidenced by Christopher Wheeldon and Morphoses or Ratmansky. ABT now does the same Balanchine ballets that they once looked at from a distance. Kylian works are everywhere, done mostly to profit the choreographer rather than enrich a dancers or an audience's experience. Everyone complained in times past that ballet was not run by good business principals and now, more and more, it is and that seems to please few as well. It would be wisest to be patient and offer patronage and support when one can and let the art form take its own course. In any case who made Ms. Homans the voice of authority because she is published?

The actual danger of this book is that someone might not know enough to think for themselves and let the author tell them ballet is dead. More people will go to dance performances than will read this book. When this changes, then worry. Go out and see a ballet. Read more ›

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gift for the Ballet Lover November 27, 2010

By Eileen Pollock

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Put everything down and read this book! It will hold you spellbound. A beautifully written and produced history of ballet, this is a book that will be treasured by the ballet lover. The author covers ballet's earliest history in 16th century court dance up to the present. There are plentiful illustrations and photographs, and the author's commentary (she is dance critic for The New Republic) is incisive and informed. She writes glowingly of Balanchine and describes his major work. Though I knew much of the history of ballet through my reading, the author's critical lens casts a new light on this evanescent art form. I give my wholehearted appreciation to Jennifer Homans for transmuting the beauty of dance to the printed page.

41 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Glorious! November 10, 2010

By CJO

Format:Hardcover

I just finished Apollo's Angels and I can't say enough in praise of this book. As a dance enthusiast, I have never read a more complete, intriguing, and accessible history of ballet. Ms. Homan's writing is lucid, fresh, and at times astonishing. I fully recommend this book. And, it would make a great Christmas present for any balletomane.

41 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If You Love Ballet, This Is A MUST READ! November 10, 2010

By jak

Format:Hardcover

A much-needed, gorgeously written, eminently readable, thoroughly researched story of four hundred years of ballet. Much is being made of Ms. Homans' final chapter, which includes an assessment of the current state of the art form. Whether or not you agree with her, that should not detract from what is a major work of performing arts scholarship. Highly recommend!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The book I've been waiting for all my life January 21, 2011

By Penelope Ocha

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I know ballet history. And I love dance. I expected that Apollo's Angels would be a pleasant addition to my shelves of ballet books and maybe add a few tidbits of information I did not know.

But this book as so much more. It's written by a thinking ex-dancer who can put the history of dance into a philosophical and cultural context. I'm sure that at nearly every page I was exclaiming ``oh, that's why'' or ``now I know.'' I think her explanation of the origins of ballet in the etiquette and self image of the Sun King's court is the best I've ever read.

I don't think I ever really understood the deep spirituality that underlies Balanchine's choreography until I read this book. It made me go back and spend hours watching videos of long-gone dancers on YouTube.

I'd quibble over a few things. Why didn't she include Mark Morris for example? And what's coming out of China and Japan? And I'm not sure her prognosis about the future of ballet need be quite so glum.

But at bottom, this book is a must for anyone who is halfway interested in the history of ballet, or, for that matter, the cultural history of the early 20th century. Thank you Jennifer Homans!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating journey into ballet's deep and mysterious past May 20, 2011

By Henry Johnston

Format:Hardcover

Jennifer Homans does in "Apollo's Angels" what nobody had done before, at least not as thoroughly as she did. Homans has done nothing less than tell the story of an art form that is well entrenched in the public conciousness but nevertheless has always seemed to have an elusive history. Homans finds the perfect balance of detail and big picture. More precisely, the details she does bring forth are both entertaining as well as crucial pieces of the bigger picture she is painting. She devotes a solid chapter to each of the major European (and American) traditions, discussing the influences, development and major choreographers/artists of the era. She also sets the development of ballet in the social and political context of the time, but without dwelling on a 'history-class' like recounting of facts and dates. I think I even understand French history, for example, better now as a result of reading this book, not to mention French ballet. I was particularly fascinated by her treatment of the Russian tradition which I thought was spot on.

The final chapter, her rather grim assessment of the state of ballet has been a source of controversy and in fact has swayed many to evaluate the whole book differently in light of her personal position. What I find rather puzzling is the almost unanimous conviction that she is 'out of touch with reality' or 'overly conservative. I find these positions hardly defensible for a number of reasons. But without getting too deep into a polemic, I think her evaluation is dead-on accurate. Whether ballet will pull out of this tailspin or not remains to be seen. But we clearly live in a very fractured era.... Virtually gone is the carefully woven fabric of individual schools and ballet traditions developed and nurtured in a coherent and confident culture and capable of tapping into the deep emotions of a people. As Homans points out, the values that gave ballet its life are no longer vital sources of inspiration in our culture but are, at best museum artifacts from a bygone era, ones that we can't help but be slightly cynical about. But far from Homans giving us the standard, tired conversative "isn't the modern world awful" argument, her desire is not to fossilize the past, but quite the opposite -- to breath new life into it. We seem to be in a confused state, holding on to ballets over a hundred years old, carefully reconstructing them, yet without a deep reflection on the values these ballets imply. We are modern and yet we cannot avoid coming back to the Swan Lakes and Sleeping Beauties. Ideology aside, we intuitively feel that these ballets capture something deep about humanity, and yet we no longer understand or believe in their context. And our attempts to chart our own course seem dry, devoid of feeling and bordering on cynical. Will ballet die? We don't know. Are the old masters dead? Yes, unfortunately they are. For now. Read more ›