Dancing Past the Light: The Life of Tanaquil Le Clercq

It’s difficult to capture the essence of a dancer on film let alone in words, but that is exactly what Protopopescu (What Remains) does in this rich, compelling biography of Tanaquil “Tanny” Le Clercq (1929–2000), “a unique fusion of power and lightness, pathos and wit.” Protopopescu describes her subject’s career—at 19, Le Clercq became a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, where both George Balanchine (she was his fourth and last wife) and Jerome Robbins created roles for her. Le Clercq was also an artist with a social conscience; she and Arthur Mitchell danced the New York City Ballet’s first interracial pas de deux in 1955, and she later taught at Mitchell’s company, the Dance Theatre of Harlem. During the company’s 1956 European tour, Le Clercq, then 27, contracted polio and never danced again. In the ensuing years, however, she found new roles as a dance teacher and coach, writer, and photographer. Protopopescu’s research is drawn not only from written and visual archives but from interviews with Le Clercq’s students, friends, and dance partners, including the late Jacques D’Amboise.