Mindy Aloff

Preface

This is a book of stories about dancing from all over the globe. I wanted to put together the kind of collection that one might pick up in a country inn on a rainy day and while away an hour browsing through: the group as a whole is subjective and partial. For dance fans and balletomanes, I've tried to avoid repeating many of the most famous dance anecdotes and, instead, to choose those that might be unexpected. Some of the stories are recent, and some are ancient.

Although novelty was my concern, history was my guide. Dance has inspired the sweetest, noblest, and most affecting stories of any of the arts, and in constructing this anthology I was thinking, especially, of readers whose first encounter with the variety and shadings of the dancer's world might take place in these pages. It is my hope, too, that the fragments here will prompt readers to seek out the wonderful books listed in the bibliography, from which most of the anecdotes have been drawn.

Copyright (c) 2006 by Mindy Aloff