19 Comments
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Jolene Handy's avatar

The story of Le Clercq always gets to me, amazing woman. Wonderful post, I love that it was the only time Balanchine was nervous about a performance! 🐱

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Bailey Richardson's avatar

Have you ever heard anything about The Ballet Cookbook or seen a copy?

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Jolene Handy's avatar

No! I just looked online and there is one selling for $299 on Amazon 😳 I’m going to keep looking!

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Mia Billetdeaux's avatar

I’m mildly obsessed with the Ballet Russes. Writing about Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was one of my first posts!

I actually came to the comments here to leave some photos I have from the set designs. However, I see no photo options 🤷‍♀️

TL;DR, I’ve been looking for (read: coveting) The Ballet Cookbook years Jolene, I think $300 is the going rate. The last I saw it was $350 at Bonnie Slotnick’s in NYC. 🫠

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Bailey Richardson's avatar

Mia! I would love to see the photos! You can’t add photos to comments on posts yet but you can add them to replies on notes - https://substack.com/@bailey/note/c-17412777?r=3uoy9&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

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Mia Billetdeaux's avatar

When I get back to my book on Monday, I’ll send them through Notes 👌

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Jolene Handy's avatar

Oh, Mia, would love to see photos! I’m hoping someday they will re-issue the cookbook. Hope you’re well, always nice to ‘see’ you on here! ❤️

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Mia Billetdeaux's avatar

Agreed! We need to find someone who can get a ear worm in with Taschen to get working on it ☺️

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Jolene Handy's avatar

Yes! Perfect Taschen book!

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Jillian Hess's avatar

I'm so excited to see a cat featured on these pages 😺

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Sarah Fay's avatar

My favorite Substack strikes again! Mourka!

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Susy Botello's avatar

This is unique and interesting! But I must be careful because they say “curiosity killed the cat.”

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Maggie M's avatar

When I was 9 I had a cat that I named Mourka. I remember that I got the name from a book about a cat named Mourka, but I could never remember which book it was. 43 years later I read this Substack article and here it is. What a wonderful article about Le Clercq and Balanchine, and of course Mourka. Thank you!

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Bailey Richardson's avatar

Wow no way!!!

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Colu Henry's avatar

Incredible. All of it.

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Katya Skorobogatova's avatar

I didn’t know so many things about him (and about Мурка 🙂) thank you for putting this together!

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Victoria K. Walker's avatar

What a fascinating story and wonderful images. Thanks Bailey.

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