Winter Season: A Dancer’s Journal by Toni Bentley

August 2017

This is quite a brutal look at the life of a ballet dancer - not brutal in a Black Swan sort of way, but just brutally honest. Toni Bentley not only had the opportunity to dance under Balachine, she had the literary skill to write about it in an engaging, painful and beautiful way. She pulls no punches about the mental, physical and emotional sacrifices it takes to be a professional ballet dancer, or about the doubts she was plagued with as a young corps members with the New York City Ballet. I flew through this book and would recommend it anyone wanting a true insight into the world of professional dance.

Further reading…