Once a Dancer... by Allegra Kent

Once a Dancer... by Allegra Kent

Autobiography of one of Balanchine's finest ballerinas

What a witty, evocative writer Ms. Kent is --New York Times

A daffy and unexpectedly poignant autobiography. . . . Kent] repossesses as a writer the unpredictable charm of her dancing. She is zanily elegant . . . frequently stranded, broke, desperate, abused, or abandoned, yet well served by a fey kind of gumption.--Kirkus Reviews

In Balanchine's] garden of unearthly delights, Allegra Kent as the most enchanting bloom of all. . . . Through Kent's own wise and courageous recollections . . . we see her unique spirit and almost see again her glorious dancing.--Vanity Fair

Kent's] writing is as varied, lucid, and troubling as her dancing. . . . To ask whether she knows how much she has inadvertently told us is merely to frame one more time the terms of her peculiar mystery.--Wall Street Journal

As distinctly riveting as she ever was on stage.--Dance Magazine

Kent, one feels, has never known quite where or who she is. . . . Born Iris Cohen in 1937, she had an early life that was the crazy kind you might find in the fiction of Flannery O'Connor. . . . She writes, ] ' Mr. B.] saw in me the psychological raw materials that could be molded and remolded into images of sensuality--unrealized and restrained, but there, just under the surface. The star inside the sapphire.' This is not only a convincing analysis of a difficult concept, it is beautiful writing.--Washington Post

Allegra Kent, legendary ballerina and muse of George Balanchine and Joseph Cornell, was a dancer at New York City Ballet for over thirty years. There she danced in dozens of major roles, many of them in ballets created especially for her by Balanchine. A former teacher at Barnard College, Allegra is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including her autobiography, Once a Dancer . . . , and her first book for children, Ballerina Swan. She lives in New York City.