Author talk with Chloe Angyal

A reckoning with one of our most beloved art forms, whose past and present are shaped by gender, racial, and class inequities—and a look inside the fight for its future. Every day, in dance studios all across America, legions of little children line up at the barre to take ballet class. This time in the studio shapes their lives, instilling lessons about gender, power, bodies, and their place in the world both in and outside of dance. In Turning Pointe, journalist Chloe Angyal captures the intense love for ballet that so many dancers feel, while also grappling with its devastating shortcomings: the power imbalance of an art form performed mostly by women, but dominated by men; the impossible standards of beauty and thinness; and the racism that keeps so many people of color out of ballet. As the rigid traditions of ballet grow increasingly out of step with the modern world, a new generation of dancers is confronting these issues head on, in the studio and on stage. For ballet to survive the twenty-first century and forge a path into a more socially just future, this reckoning is essential.

About Chloe

Chloe Angyal is the author of Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dnacers is Saving Ballet From Itself, which Publisher’s Weekly called “a captivating debut.” Her writing about gender and power has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Marie Claire, and The Atlantic. Chloe grew up in Sydney and lives outside Iowa City, where she is a senior editor at VICE News.

About Ariane

Ariane teaches ballet to preschoolers and beginner adults at Dance Domain in Sydney. Her first book, Because I'm Not Myself You See, a memoir about Ariane's experience with postnatal psychosis, will be published by Black Inc. in early 2024.