Off the Bookshelf

Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique

Knopf, 426 pp., $40

This elegant tome reads like an exquisite cookbook for the body, with recipes for things like "Battement Frappe Pique" and instructions like "arrive instantly -- BANG! -- in the third arabesque." There are lots of how-to pictures of dancers getting it right and wrong, with plenty of cute captions: "Peter trying to serve a cup of coffee from his heel as he presents his foot"; "He finishes his turn looking front, arms in fifth high and happy about it." For each section there is a box of "Details I often insist on ... " offering highly specific hints for perfecting plies, pirouettes, etc. from Suki Schorer (Balanchine's prodigy). Schorer's book is geared toward a very select audience, but the affected prissiness and meticulous attention to every technical and emotional aspect of ballet is universally endearing.