Shadow Dancing

Rating:
Summary: The world of dancing and its demands realistically portrayed
Review: Emma Kate is a teen ballerina who has left her small midwest home to join a ballet school in New York City, against her father's wishes. There she confronts her talents, their limits, and three male mentors who each make very different demands on her life. Can she change her name, dance style and very soul to please them all? The world of dancing and its demands - especially its emotional challenges - is realistically portrayed in Shadow Dancingp, a fine novel for older teens and adults alike.

Rating:
Summary: A Reader's review
Review: It was a little strange reading a novel by someone I know. Several times I put the book down wondering how that woman who stood up in front of the classroom gained so much knowledge about so many things and made it sound so real. Nancy is a teacher of Creative Writing. (I passed her course so this isn't really necessary.)

I admit my male machismo played a part in my hesitancy to pick up and read a book about a ballet dancer. There was also my lack of knowledge for ballet, and other personal prejudices. (I have two left feet permanently imbedded in wet clay and I don't speak French.) The story took me deeper than I ever thought I would go into the mind of a dancer and her profession. And I enjoyed it. And I learned. I also gained a greater insight into Nancy's ability as a writer. The few snippets of her writing she let out in class only gave a small clue to the scope of her talent.

I especially admire her characters and their development. She did what she tells her students to do; dig into the cracks and find the diamonds in the dirt. The quality and consistency of the writing carried through the entire book. She left no loose ends, doing a great job on the ending. That took guts. It's a surprise and yet true to the whole story. Although she wrote about a dancer, I can see the same story in most professions, male and female.

Rating:
Summary: A Reader's review
Review: It was a little strange reading a novel by someone I know. Several times I put the book down wondering how that woman who stood up in front of the classroom gained so much knowledge about so many things and made it sound so real. Nancy is a teacher of Creative Writing. (I passed her course so this isn't really necessary.)

I admit my male machismo played a part in my hesitancy to pick up and read a book about a ballet dancer. There was also my lack of knowledge for ballet, and other personal prejudices. (I have two left feet permanently imbedded in wet clay and I don't speak French.) The story took me deeper than I ever thought I would go into the mind of a dancer and her profession. And I enjoyed it. And I learned. I also gained a greater insight into Nancy's ability as a writer. The few snippets of her writing she let out in class only gave a small clue to the scope of her talent.

I especially admire her characters and their development. She did what she tells her students to do; dig into the cracks and find the diamonds in the dirt. The quality and consistency of the writing carried through the entire book. She left no loose ends, doing a great job on the ending. That took guts. It's a surprise and yet true to the whole story. Although she wrote about a dancer, I can see the same story in most professions, male and female.

Rating:
Summary: Shadow Dancing is really a Tango!
Review: Lots of authors take on the challenge of shining bright lights on moments of passage, moments when the real truths of life are revealed. That's what Nancy Pinard tackles in her deftly written SHADOW DANCING.

Through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Emma Kate Thomas, the reader gets a first class excursion through the world of a New York ballet school and the not-so-mean streets of the big city itself.

Pinard sets her story at the time when the sixties were about to mellow into the seventies, a time when females were being encouraged to find their own drummer and follow that beat.

Emma Kate is a Midwestern-bred gal who hears the promise of that new era, shucking off the fears and dreams of her parents and the possible marriage to her small ballet company partner to experience the chance of a lifetime, a chance for celebrity, a chance to shine big-time.

What Emma Kate finds is that she may not be Cinderella after all.

"Among Daniel's chosen I looked childish and chubby, an ungainly puppy disrupting his swanlike corps de ballet. Even my name was wrong. The dancers in front of me had names like Kendra and Camille and Patrice, which spoken in Daniel's voice sounded like rare species of orchids. He moved among them, tending his hot house, purring and pruning at their loviness, sovereign god of his personal Eden. Emma Kate was a geranium name."

Pinard is an insightful storyteller whose style is easy and comfortable. She handles images and emotions with great maturity considering this is her first piece of fiction.

SHADOW DANCING is an interesting trip into the late sixties, a time when everything seemed so possible, but like Emma Kate, everyone must find what's really lurking in the shadows.

Rating:
Summary: A Teen Dancer's Dream
Review: Ms. Pinard's story of Emma Kate's journey to New York to join a ballet company is a fascinating study, merging the author's keen insights into the world of ballet and the coming-of-age of a midwestern raised young woman.

The author starts the story with Emma Kate's break from her parents, and moves on to her difficulties in adapting to life in New York City. Her main character struggles not only in her relationships in the ballet company, but also in trying to shift from a homogeonous midwestern lifestyle to the melting pot of New York.

Emma Kate is a brave young woman, and surprising capable in getting used to her new situation. But she is also naive in many respects, especially in dealing with men. She has a rough time understanding what the men in her new environment want from her, and sometimes has to pay a high price for her lack of savvy.

This is a fun book to read: a fine insight into the mirrored cloister of the dance studio, and a touching tale of a young woman's struggle to achieve her dream to be a ballet dancer.
By E. Hazel, author of "Tarot Decoded"