I just finished re-reading A Dancer in Wartime, by Gillian Lynne. I highly recommend it to all teachers and older teens and parents. It is good to get a perspective on dancing through difficult times. In fact, perhaps I never told you, but my own teacher, Miriam Williamson, was right there as well, dancing with the Sadler’s Wells at the same time. She used to tell us about dancing while the bombs were dropping… no one ever left the theater. Heroics of an extraordinary measure.

Additionally, I think reading Tamara Karsavina’s Theatre Street, and any of the autobiographies by dancers who experienced the Russian Revolution would also be valuable.

There is also a young adult level book, historical fiction, called Dancing Through Fire, about the Paris Opera House and the fire and war, in 1870. It is by Kathryn Lasky.

Kathy