In 1959, the Bolshoi Ballet arrived in New York for its first ever
performances in the United States. The tour was part of the
Soviet-American cultural exchange, arranged by the governments of
the US and USSR as part of their Cold War strategies. This book
explores the first tours of the exchange, by the Bolshoi in 1959
and 1962, by American Ballet Theatre in 1960, and by New York City
Ballet in 1962. The tours opened up space for genuine appreciation
of foreign ballet. American fans lined up overnight to buy tickets
to the Bolshoi, and Soviet audiences packed massive theaters to see
American companies. Political leaders, including Khrushchev and
Kennedy, met with the dancers. The audience reaction, screaming and
crying, was overwhelming. But the tours also began a series of deep
misunderstandings. American and Soviet audiences did not view
ballet in the same way. Each group experienced the other's ballet
through the lens of their own aesthetics. Americans loved Soviet
dancers but believed that Soviet ballets were old-fashioned and
vulgar. Soviet audiences and critics likewise appreciated American
technique and innovation but saw American choreography as empty and
dry. Drawing on both Russian- and English-language archival
sources, this book demonstrates that the separation between Soviet
and American ballet lies less in how the ballets look and sound,
and more in the ways that Soviet and American viewers were trained
to see and hear. It suggests new ways to understand both Cold War
cultural diplomacy and twentieth-century ballet.
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