Jennifer Homans on George Balanchine, with Pamela Newkirk

Arguably the greatest choreographer who ever lived, George Balanchine was one of the cultural titans of the twentieth century—The New York Times called him “the Shakespeare of dancing.” His radical approach to choreography—and life—reinvented the art of ballet and made him a legend. Written with enormous style and artistry, and based on more than one hundred interviews and research in archives across Russia, Europe, and the Americas, Mr. B carries us through Balanchine’s tumultuous and high-pitched life story and into the making of his extraordinary dances.

With full access to Balanchine’s papers and many of his dancers, Jennifer Homans, the dance critic for The New Yorker and a former dancer herself, has spent more than a decade researching Balanchine’s life and times to write a vast history of the twentieth century through the lens of one of its greatest artists: the definitive biography of the man his dancers called Mr. B.

Jennifer Homans is the dance critic for The New Yorker. Her widely acclaimed Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet was a bestseller and named one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review. Trained in dance at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, she performed professionally with the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. She earned her BA at Columbia University and her PhD in modern European history at New York University, where she is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence and the Founding Director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts.

Pamela Newkirk is a journalist, professor, and multidisciplinary scholar whose work traverses history and journalism. Her latest book, Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business will be released this fall. Her previous book, Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga was completed while she was a Leon Levy Biography fellow. The book was selected as the Best Book of 2015 by NPR, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle; an Editor's Choice by The New York Times and won the NAACP Image Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Elebash Recital Hall, Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, United States