Jennifer Homans, “Mr. B, George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century”

LP² member Ed Brill interviews Jennifer Homans, an American historian, author, and dance critic, about her latest book, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s Twentieth Century.

Arguably the greatest choreographer of all time, George Balanchine was also a cultural titan of the twentieth century. Born in Russia under the last czar, Balanchine experienced the upheavals of both world wars, the Russian Revolution, exile, and the Cold War. Co-founder of the New York City Ballet, he pressed ballet in the United States to the forefront of modernism, transforming it into a popular art. With full access to Balanchine’s papers and many of his dancers, Jennifer Homans now gives us a comprehensive history of Balanchine’s life and times. 

After dancing professionally with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Jennifer Homans received her B.A. degree from Columbia and her Ph.D in Modern European History from NYU. She is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU, where she wrote her first book, Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2010. 

Homans was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013. In 2014, she established the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. In 2019, she was named the New Yorker's dance critic. Her 2022 book Mr. B is a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle award in biography.