"[T]he larger portrait she paints, of two curious, forward-looking artists forged in the same fires, is worth spending some time with." —New York Times
"As a meditation on history and art, Balanchine & the Lost Muse proves to be a bravura performance. Ms. Kendall, who knows both Russia and Russian well, offers some of the loveliest prose in recent dance writing." — Wall Street Journal
"[H]er history of ballet in the early post-Revolutionary period is very valuable, as Balanchine told us little about his youth." — The New Yorker
"The book reads like a detective novel, but has pages of luminous writing about the choreographer and his ballet." —Dance Magazine
"Elizabeth Kendall has unearthed the world of Balanchine's childhood. For this alone we owe her a great debt... [H]er book is not only a portrait of Balanchine's youth, it is a portrait of Russia in collapse - of the world that was dying as Balanchine was coming of age." -New York Review of Books
"There is no doubt that Balanchine and the Lost Muse is the last word on this period of Balanchine's life" -Weekly Standard
"'Fascinating' is the word for this ground-breaking account of Balanchine's formative years, infused with tenderness, brio, wit and compassionate insight. Elizabeth Kendall is one of our foremost dance critics and historians, and she has outdone herself here, capturing, via original research, dazzling descriptions and acute syntheses, the sensual color and flavor of that lost, magical milieu."- Phillip Lopate
"Balanchine and the Lost Muse reveals more about the choreographer's early life than any previous book. With skill and imagination, Elizabeth Kendall peels away the layers of a complicated, unhappy family life, shows us an adolescent fired with idealism for his chosen art, and evokes the memories of dances and dancers - like the ballerina muse Lidia Ivanova, who died only days before he left Russia - that haunted his choreography for decades."- Lynn Garafola, author of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Professor of Dance, Barnard College
"In this beautifully written and extensively researched account of Balanchine's early years and the mysterious and untimely death of ballerina Lidia Ivanova, Elizabeth Kendall recreates an era and gives us new insight into Balanchine the genius and innovator, and by anchoring her narrative firmly in a larger political and historical context, gives us an invaluable picture of the Russian cultural scene at the beginning of the last century. Required reading for anyone interested in one of ballet's great masters or simply fans of first-rate, flawless writing."—Allegra Kent, former Principal dancer, New York City ballet, author of Once a Dancer
"Kendall's ability to breathe life into characters and situations is one of the main pleasures of the book" — The Nation
It's remarkable that so many great dancers and choreographers came out of repressive, revolutionary Russia. This book is the story of how and why. Kendall (Literary Studies/The New School; Autobiography of a Wardrobe, 2009) begins with the 1920 class of the Petrograd Imperial Theater School, which began their ballet training during the last days of the czar. When he was 9, Balanchine's parents took his sister to audition, and while she was rejected, he was quickly chosen--against his wishes. He hated dancing. The students' housing was warm and comfortable, food was bountiful, and carriages were provided to take students to performances. That abruptly ended in 1917, and the struggle to survive after the revolution illustrates the dancers' resolve. This is not so much a biography of Balanchine but a story of the dedication of all these young dancers and their drive for perfection. Their determination to perform, along with all Russians' love for the arts, particularly ballet, ensured their survival under the Bolsheviks. Was his muse the ballerina Lidia Ivanova, or was it the experience of his intensive classical training? He absorbed Ivanova's brilliant new ways of movement inspired by a visit from Isadora Duncan. Ivanova's death, just before Balanchine's small group left Russia in 1924, deprived the world of a great ballerina but left him with an ideal to copy as he wrote for others. While Balanchine was a great dancer, this is when his choreographic talents were born. His classical training is what enabled him to create the avant-garde dancing that is today's norm. The ballet students barely survived through the civil war, foraging for food, burning furniture for heat, searching for venues and always dancing. Kendall's great success is her illustration of the profound love and devotion of these dancers for their art.
