Anne Searcy, "Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange" (Oxford UP, 2020)

episode

New Books in American Studies not yet transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet Upvotes decide what gets transcribed next — 0 so far. Sign in to upvote

More from New Books in American Studies

Lucas L. Johnson II, "Remembering Roots: How an American Classic Transformed the World" (Broadleaf Books, 2026) 44 min · 09 Sep 2026

Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North " (FSG, 2025) 1h 4m · 09 Sep 2026

Claudia Verhoeven, "Love and Terror: The Helter-Skelter History of the Manson Murders" (Verso, 2026) 1h 3m · 08 Sep 2026

Terry Kirby, "The Newsmongers: A History of Tabloid Journalism" (Reaktion Books, 2024) 51 min · 20 Dec 2025

All episodes from New Books in American Studies →

Report any issue

Source

Recorded09 Apr 2021

Publisherfeeds.megaphone.fm

Handlerec:4812948

Show notes

During the Cold War, cultural diplomacy was one way that the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union tried to cultivate goodwill towards their countries. As Anne Searcy explains in her book, Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange (Oxford University Press, 2020), dance was part of this effort. She focuses on two tours of the USSR undertaken by American troupes when the American Ballet Company visited the Soviets in 1960, and when choreographer George Balanchine returned to the country of his birth in 1962 with his New York City Ballet Company. These popular tours functioned as an important symbolic meeting point for Soviet and American officials, creating goodwill and normalizing relations between the two countries in an era when nuclear conflict was a real threat. Although geo-political tensions feature in the book, Searcy is just as concerned with the reception of these tours by Soviet and American critics, and how they filtered their opinions on the dances and performers they saw through local aesthetic debates, tinged by political realities. Kristen M. Turner is a lecturer in the music and honors departments at North Carolina State University. Her research centers on race and class in American popular entertainment at the turn of the twentieth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.