When Dancers Make History

This event will feature Jennifer Homans, New Yorker Dance Critic, historian, and founder and Director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University, in conversation with historian Tara Zahra and dancer Meredith Dincolo. The discussion will center on Homans’ acclaimed biography of George Balanchine, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century(2022), as well as the broader questions of what dance can teach us about history and what history can teach us about dance. What is the role of an ephemeral art form in understanding and commemorating the past and present?

About the Speaker

Jennifer Homans is the Dance Critic for The New Yorker. She is the author of Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (2022), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet (2010). Homans was a professional dancer before completing a PhD in Modern European History at New York University, where she is now a Global Distinguished Professor and the Founding Director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts.

Host or Publisher Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society | University of Chicago