It is that time of year again. When you want to sit on the porch and drink lemonade. When kids are out of school and play outside in the street for hours after supper.  When it’s time to watch So You Think You Can Dance.  I have been obsessed with dance since I was small.  I took dance classes for years, all the way through graduate school–clogging, ballet, modern. And I combined my love of books with that of dance by reading every book connected with dance I could find.

One of the first dance books I remember reading was Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild. This story of three adopted sisters who studied at a performing arts school in England to help their family by making money acting, singing, and dancing. The adoptions were romantic enoug, as the babies were gathered by G.U.M. (Great Uncle Matthew) as he traveled the world collecting fossils and other specimens. The details of the dance and theater world just add to the romance.

On Stage Please is an autobiographical novel by Victoria Tennant that describes her being accepted and going to study at the ballet school for the National Ballet of Canada.   The details of the young girl leaving home to live at a boarding school that is combined with pursuing the dream of becoming a dancer is also the theme of Listen to the Nightingale by Rumer Godden and The Royal Ballet School Diaries series by Alexandra Moss.

A common theme in some of these books is the pull between wanting to be a normal kid or teen and the life and sacrifices of a dancer.  In Ellie and the Bunheads by Sally Warner, Ellie loves dance but is tired of her mother and teacher putting her down, telling her not eat this or that or not to go out with her friends.  Sometimes she just wants to be a normal teen and wonders if she could give up dancing. A few more older titles that I remember reading and enjoying:  Just Like Jenny by Sandy Asher, Maybe Next Year by Amy Hest, Ballet Fever by Betty Cavanna.

Some books use dance in conjunction with more serious themes.  In A Time For Dancing by Davida Wills Hurwin, best friends and fellow dancers Jules and Sam must come to terms with Jule’s cancer. Vicki, a teen dancer that gets accepted to a prestigious summer ballet intensive, learns that dance is not color blind when it comes to the color of your skin in Martha Southgate’s Another Way to Dance. Some more recent titles include The Melting Season by Celeste Conway where Giselle uses dance to avoid her giref and memories of her dead father, and Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, a novel based on several fairy tales, including The Twelve Dancing Princesses, where sisters use their experiences in the magical Dancing Glade to realize ther worth and declare their independence from their expected roles in life. Finally, while the ton is light and there is quite a bit of humor intertwined in the story, Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone is ultimately the story of Kayla who realizes that she may not have the perfect ballet body, but she has a good heart, a kind soul, and friends who love her for who she is.  In the end, she finds her place in the dance world may not be the one the expected.

Dancers and those obsessed with dance also like to read about other dancers.  One of the first biographies I remember reading was Dancing Star: The Story of Anna Pavlova by Glady Malvern.  It looks like it was reprinted in 2000, but still may be difficult to find.  Well worth the searching though as it reads like a novel rather then a dry discussion of the dancer’s life.  I liked it so much that I borrowed it from the library many times.  Another book read around the same time was Dance to the Piper by Agnes DeMille.  In this first volume of her autobiography, DeMille recounts the story of gorwing up in and around Hollywood and how she first became exposed to and interested in dance.  In college I was exposed to modern dance, lucky enough to take classes from someone who had danced for Martha Graham.  Several great videoes on Martha are out there, and I highly recommend all of them so you can see her dances and artistry.  One that is especially good is Martha Graham: An American Original in Performance.  It includes several full length productions.  I did enjoy Martha Graham: A Dancer’s Life by Russell Freedman for its detail and beautiful pictures.  In those same classes, we were exposed to Paul Taylor’s Esplanade full of light and joy.  I had admired Taylor for years after watching the Houston Ballet perform “Company B.” His autobiography, Private Domain, is well worth seeking out, as is a DVD of Dancemaker.