Passionate Work

Reviews / Votes

"Passionate Work is compellingly written, deeply researched, and analytically sophisticated. Horowitz provides the deepest sociological analysis of the work lives of middle-level ballet dancers that has yet been written. With its unique focus on these dancers within a world of organizations and reputations, this book permits us to think through a significant and esteemed (if occasionally problematic) cultural domain with deep data and a novel perspective."
-Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University "This is a well-researched, clear-eyed account of the nuts and bolts of what a career in dance entails. Horowitz takes dancing, and dancers, seriously, and regards the profession as a passionate occupation but also as work, with everything that entails: effort, time, financial investment, and often, disappointment. Passionate Work answers many questions about what it means to be a dancer, including some we didn't even know we had."
-Marina Harss, author of The Boy from Kyiv "Horowitz illuminates the working lives of dozens of contemporary ballet dancers, both those employed in companies and the freelancers she calls "portfolio dancers," masterfully depicting what it is to be a professional dancer in an age of labor precarity. Through their voices we experience their daily struggle to build a career, balance creativity, collaboration, health, and friendship; and maintain a viable sense of self against all odds."
-Lynn Garafola, author of Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance "An illuminating study of dancers' careers, their uncertain, often precarious paths, and their many challenges, both demanding and rewarding. Qualitative sociology at its best."
-Pierre-Michel Menger, author of The Economics of Creativity "'Dancers who didn't become stars' take the stage in this valuable sociological study.... Horowitz sheds fascinating light on how the dance world capitalizes on the passion of its laborers."
-Publishers Weekly "Passionate Work: Choreographing a Dance Career is a well-researched, illuminating, often compelling, often thought-provoking study as Horowitz discusses the work lives of dancers who audiences see, but I suspect rarely think too much about. In doing so, she starts to answer that most difficult of questions, even for those who are: What does it mean to be a dancer?"-David Mead, SeeingDance "Passionate Work is a vital resource for anyone interested in labor studies or dance, or those willing to interrogate what it means to pursue a vocation. A must-read for scholars and practitioners alike. Essential."-G. King, CHOICE