Episode 81 Jennifer Homans

Over ten years in the making, Jennifer Homans’s treatise on choreographer George Balanchine introduces us to this complicated artist in a light not heretofore shown.

With Lincoln Kerstein, Balanchine created the School of American Ballet, and then the New York City Ballet.

One cannot study Balanchine without studying Russian history, at least immediately preceding the Revolution up to the early 80s. In her Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century, Jennifer touches all bases.

Jennifer probably could not have written such thorough biography had she not been a professional dancer herself. She is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU and is currently the dance critic at The New Yorker.

She was a joy to chat with.