"Each story plants the reader amid a cast of dancers who struggle - valiantly, playfully, fiercely - to find in the rigorous discipline and animating beauty of ballet a balance to the chaos of everyday life. In "Don Quixote," the world's most famous choreographer becomes infatuated with a coltish young dancer who proves both siren and muse. In "Bugaku," a rising star finds that the spotlight demands more of her than she had planned to give.

The principals of the climactic title story enact an elaborate - and often violent - pas de deux offstage that fuels the white-hot chemistry when they perform. Many of the stories dare to imagine the inner lives of this past century's titans - Balanchine, Fonteyn, Nureyev, Ashton, and Godunov - which rival in complexity and pathos the classic dramas they perform onstage: La Bayadere, Don Quixote, Swan Lake."--BOOK JACKET.