Presenting for the first time Akim Volynsky's (1861-1926) pre-balletic writings on Leonardo da Vinci, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Otto Weininger, and on such illustrious personalities as Zinaida Gippius, Ida Rubinstein, and Lou Andreas-Salome, And Then Came Dance provides new insight into the origins of Volynsky's life-altering journey to become Russia's foremost ballet critic. A man for whom the realm of art was largely female in form and whose all-encompassing image of woman constituted the crux of his aesthetic contemplation that crossed over into the personal and libidinal, Volynsky looks ahead to another Petersburg-bred high priest of classical dance, George Balanchine. With an undeniable proclivity toward ballet's female component, Volynsky's dance writings, illuminated by examples of his earlier gendered criticism, invite speculation on how truly ground-breaking and forward-looking this critic is.

Presenting for the first time Akim Volynsky's (1861-1926) pre-balletic writings on Leonardo da Vinci, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Otto Weininger, and on such illustrious personalities as Zinaida Gippius, Ida Rubinstein, and Lou Andreas-Salome, And Then Came Dance provides new insight into the origins of Volynsky's life-altering journey to become Russia's foremost ballet critic. A man for whom the realm of art was largely female in form and whose all-encompassing image of woman constituted the crux of his aesthetic contemplation that crossed over into the personal and libidinal, Volynsky looks ahead to another Petersburg-bred high priest of classical dance, George Balanchine. With an undeniable proclivity toward ballet's female component, Volynsky's dance writings, illuminated by examples of his earlier gendered criticism, invite speculation on how truly ground-breaking and forward-looking this critic is.

List of IllustrationsPrefaceA Note on the TextAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Akim Volynsky's Female PortraitsPART ONE: BODIES IN SITURussian Women: A Retrospective (1923)1) Amoureuses and Druidesses2) A Belated Druidess (on Lyubov Gurevich)3) The Sylph (on Zinaida Gippius)4) Pandora's Box (on Ida Rubinstein)5) A Bouquet (on Lou Andreas-Salome and others)Amor (co-authored with Lou Andreas-Salome, 1897)The Mona Lisa (from Volynsky's book: Leonardo da Vinci (1898)1) Nastasya Filippovna (1900)2) The Infernal Woman (Grushenka) (from Volynsky's writings on Dostoevsky 1901)Madonna (Introduction to the Russian edition of Otto Weininger's Sex and Character, 1909)PART TWO: BODIES IN MOTIONThe 'Russkaya' (Ekaterina Geltser) (1912)The Young Generation (1912)The Dancing of Isadora Duncan (1913)The Dancing of Anna Pavlova (1913)Three Ballerinas (Pavlova, Preobrazhenskaya, Kshesinskaya) (1913)A Legendary Talent (Agrippina Vaganova) (1913)The Russian Dancer (1913)The Pupil of Mariya Savina (Olga Spesivtsva) (1913)The Performances at Krasnoe Selo (1913)The Broken Harp (Olga Preobrazhenskaya) (1913)The Snowflake (Olga Spesivtseva) (1913)Anna Pavlova (1914)A Pre-eminent Talent (Mathilda Kshesinskaya) (1914)Vain Precautions (Tamara Karsavina) (1915)Kseniya Makletsova (1915)Moscow and Petrograd (Geltser, Makletsova, et al) (1915)Agrippina Vaganova's Farewell Benefit (1916)The Testing of a Ballerina (Elena Liukom) (1916)Yuliya Sedova's Farewell Benefit (1916)Tamara Karsavina (1916)Vera Karalli (1916)Liubov Egorova's Final Benefit Performance (1917)The Classical Dancer (1922)Elsa Vill (1922)Classical Fouette and Leonardo da Vinci's Contrapposto (1922)Giselle and The Little Humpbacked Horse (Elena Liukom) (1922)The Animated Flower (1923)Ballet's Lily (Elizaveta Gerdt) (1923)Kseniya Petrovna Makletsova (1923)Elena Liukom (1923)Our Moscow Guests (Viktorina Kriger) (1923)The Gemstones of Benvenuto Cellini (1923)On the Russian Ballet (1923)The Fairy of Deer Park (Mathilda Kshesinskaya) (1924)