Lincoln Kirstein, co-founder (with George Balanchine) and longtime General Director of the world-famous New York City Ballet, is one of America's most eloquent and influential spokesmen for the dance. In this profusely illustrated study, he brings extraordinary erudition, a ballentomane's passion and a critic's perception to the task of illuminating four centuries of ballet history.Here is an examination, lucid and brilliant, not only of dances and dancers, but of dance itself. Kirsten surveys the five components of theatrical dance - choreography, gesture and mime, music costume, scenery and decor - and traces their development over the past 400 years. "If there is a hero, " he writes, "it is choreography" - that "map of movement" embodying the syntax, idiom and vocabulary of dance.
