Bücher von Helena Wulff

Drawing on extensive fieldwork with the American Ballet Theatre in New York, the Royal Ballet in London. the Royal Swedish Ballet and the Ballet Frankfurt in Frankfurt-am-Main, this book is about dancers - how their careers are made and unmade - and what happens in dance companies offstage.

Dancing at the crossroads used to be young people's opportunity to meet and enjoy themselves on mild summer evenings in the countryside in Ireland until this practice was banned by law, the Public Dance Halls Act in 1935. Now a key metaphor in Irish cultural and political life, "e;dancing at the crossroads"e; also crystallizes the argument of this book: Irish dance, from Riverdance (the commercial show) and competitive dancing to dance theatre, conveys that Ireland is to be found in a crossroads situation with a firm base in a distinctly Irish tradition which is also becoming a prominent part of European modernity.