Once a Dancer...

Once a Dancer... is an autobiography written by Alregra Kent, through her eyes. Her story was written to tell people her story and struggles as a young, flourishing dancer, and it did just that. Born as Iris Cohen, it begins in her childhood where you learn of her parent's separation, and the changing of her name. As a young girl, she always longed to dance, but didn't get farther than her living room, because her family didn't stay in one place long enough to begin lessons. Eventually, when they settle down a bit in New York, and she was eleven years old, she began lessons at the School of American Ballet. At first she was uncoordinated, and nothing close to a beautiful dancer. At first she thought she was squandering her time on something she could never succeed at. But she had no qualms. She leaped high, pointed her toes, listened to every word of her instructor Irina Najinska, and improved greatly within her first year. She was happy to finally have the supp rt of her mom, but she still needed something all to herself. So she never expressed her emotions around her mom. "No one can touch silence." (page 39) She believed that silence was as loud as anything else.

After dancing for three years, she was recognized by George Balnchine. A famous and well respected choreographer. As her dancing developed, she danced with New York City Ballet, and traveled all around the world performing lead roles such as Ivesiana, Agon, and Bugaku. Jumping high, and being light on her toes made her become world famous. She retired from professional ballet in 1981 and began to teach.

Year by year this story went through her life. There wasn't much dialogue at the beginning. Towards the end there was more talking and less "in her head." Which made things a little more exciting. Writing all her life events in order definitely helped with knowing and understanding when things happened. One thing that kept the book interesting were the random quotes at the beginning of each chapter. They all had something to do with dance, and Alegra's experience in dance. Not only were they entertaining, but also demonstrated the way Alegra thought about life. "Commit the oldest sins, the newest kinds of ways." (Shakespeare, page 107)

This book demonstrates a lot about dance. It shows the difficulty of training and learning technique. It also shows how one must give their life to dance if they want to be successful. They cannot care about where they live, where they are touring, or how much money they make. They must be dancing out of love for ballet. If dancing for the love of money, you are in the wrong profession. "...I relied on dance itself." (page 134) It also shows how ballet can portray hidden emotion, for example when Alegra danced in La Sonnambula, "Even though there is death, the illusion of her carrying him upward suggests rising above mourning. Grief is something how transcended through the beauty of the image." (page 138)

I thought this book was very hard to get through. The way it was written often lost me. It would go from something like her mother's behaviour, directly to trying to how much she loved the company. Separately these things made sense, but not together. It was just confusing. I didn't enjoy this book, but critics did. "She danced with talent, great wit, and humor. Now she writes with all three." (Alexandra Danilova) Not once did I laugh at this book, and i never heard anything clever or talented about the writing. Although the story was decent, i would not recommend this book to most people.