Introduction

The Language of Classical Ballet by Flavia Pappacena. 2012. Rome, Italy: Gremese E Editore. 240 pp., 400+ illustrations, bibliographical references. $30.95 paper.

“…As such, it is difficult to place this book within a reader's demographic, since it is a strange hybrid of a picture book and a treatise attempting to create a methodology to define the history of “classical” ballet. Imbued with little of the gravitas of Kant's The Cambridge Companion to Ballet (2007) or Lee's Ballet in Western Culture (2002), The Language of Classical Ballet does not use academic citation or a specified bibliography, and would not be a great tool for guiding university students through the wider trans-historical definitions of ballet as a genre. As related to dance scholarship, the book has none of the concentrated specificity of works such as Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp's Ballet de la Nuit (2009), which presents the entire scope of scenographic images from an individual ballet production.…”