The Classic Ballet: Basic Technique and Terminology

“For soundness, for clarity, for succinctness, this manual of basic ballet is the best there is anywhere.”
–Edwin Denby, The Nation

With a precision unparalleled in any other book of its kind, The Classic Ballet presents a lucid text, and nearly six hundred drawings describe and illustrate in minute detail the proper body position, balance point, movement, and attitude of each position and step in the basic classical repertory.

As George Balanchine wrote in his preface: “There are no shortcut...