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bags_and_bookz 's review for:
The Ballerinas
by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and Rachel Kapelke-Dale for free e-ARC in return of my honest review.
A trio of ballerinas met as a students at the Paris Opera Ballet School. She became close friends and keep this friendship though years of school, performances and long distance as one of them took a placing in St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre as a choreographer. Many years later, they reunite in Paris and live through another tragedy that bonds them together even more than their past.
Rachel Kapelke-Dale raises awareness about the ballet as a cruel discipline, about the place of men and women, about their power and what is happening when nobody sees, how sexist and how elite the whole establishment is. The relationship between powerful people (directors, board, etc) and dancers, friendship and betrayal, love and hate - the ballet is a little world within the whole world with its own rulers, benefactors and victims.
I think the message that the author tried to relay is powerful and very important. I have never thought about the issues she mentioned within a ballet world. What I saw was a perfect picture of the stage, performance, but I have never gave a though what was underneath all that. For making me ask questions and listen - I am eternally grateful to Rachel Kapelke-Dale.
Character-wise I think the author did a decent job, the girls came alive through pages, they lived and laughed, did some trouble and then payed for it. They seemed real - I could easily imagine this trio in any school. Plot-wise it was ok, with flashbacks and present narration the story built itself to be quite solid and interesting. I can't say I was always super engaged with it, it was just fine.
I am looking forward to read more work by Rachel Kapelke-Dale.
A trio of ballerinas met as a students at the Paris Opera Ballet School. She became close friends and keep this friendship though years of school, performances and long distance as one of them took a placing in St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre as a choreographer. Many years later, they reunite in Paris and live through another tragedy that bonds them together even more than their past.
Rachel Kapelke-Dale raises awareness about the ballet as a cruel discipline, about the place of men and women, about their power and what is happening when nobody sees, how sexist and how elite the whole establishment is. The relationship between powerful people (directors, board, etc) and dancers, friendship and betrayal, love and hate - the ballet is a little world within the whole world with its own rulers, benefactors and victims.
I think the message that the author tried to relay is powerful and very important. I have never thought about the issues she mentioned within a ballet world. What I saw was a perfect picture of the stage, performance, but I have never gave a though what was underneath all that. For making me ask questions and listen - I am eternally grateful to Rachel Kapelke-Dale.
Character-wise I think the author did a decent job, the girls came alive through pages, they lived and laughed, did some trouble and then payed for it. They seemed real - I could easily imagine this trio in any school. Plot-wise it was ok, with flashbacks and present narration the story built itself to be quite solid and interesting. I can't say I was always super engaged with it, it was just fine.
I am looking forward to read more work by Rachel Kapelke-Dale.