Five months before her death of tuberculosis in 1884, Marie Bashkirtseff, an aspiring artist and a would-be mondaine, composed a preface to her personal diary. In it, she brazenly declared that in th
Tutus and leotards, pointe shoes and ribbions, stretching exercises at the barre--these are all familiar images when one is thinking of ballet. But there's much more to this historic dance form than p
