The Bennington School of the Dance

Compiled and edited by Elizabeth McPherson

McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, N.C. and London, 2013

A Review

This book, a comprehensive review of the Bennington School, is both instructive and enjoyable. The use of original source material (quotations from faculty and students, many of whom became notable artists in their own right) enlivens the comprehensive statistics. Anecdotes such as hanging ones laundry on the bushes and being offered a cocktail by the “big wigs” give the reader a sense of immediacy. You are there. The many personal recountings of the classes speak to the investigation into the art of motion that engaged the artists of that day. A selection of writings by former Bennington students (who became the artists in their own right), speaking of how the classes helped shape their individual aesthetic, is illuminating.

Of course, this book is about my time, so it is immediate for me. But I trust that younger readers who have appetite for innovation may find it as delicious as I do.

—Ruth Grauert, October 2013