Swan Dive

'Swan Dive is to ballet what Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was to restaurants, a chance to go behind the serene front of house to the sweaty, foul-mouthed, psychofrenzy backstage.' - Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times<BR><BR>In this love letter to the art of dance, Georgina Pazcoguin, New York City Ballet's first Asian American female soloist, lays bare the backstage world of elite ballet.<BR><BR>With an unapologetic sense of humour about the cut-throat mentality required, Pazcoguin takes us from her small home town in Pennsylvania to training for one of the most revered ballet companies in the world - a company that was rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Pazcoguin continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against harassment, abuse and racism - all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand.<BR><BR>Tying together Pazcoguin's fight for equality with an infectious passion for her craft, Swan Dive is a page-turning, one-of-a-kind memoir that guarantees you'll never view a ballerina or a ballet the same way again.<BR><BR>'Always arresting onstage, Georgina Pazcoguin gives us a take on the ballet world that is witty and from the heart. An eye-opening read.' - Mikhail Baryshnikov<BR><BR>'A funny, poignant and shocking read . . . [Pazcoguin] punctures, with enormous glee, the stereotype of the ballet dancer as an elegant, ethereal being.' - Fiona Sturges, Guardian