'This complex and beautifully written investigation of ballet's development in France from the early 18th through the late 19th century extends Foster's earlier efforts to link dance theory and practice...This work is a landmark in the field' - NS. E. Friedler, "Choice". 'Invents a new method for writing the history of performance: Foster has found an innovative way of appealing directly to the kinesthetic imagination of her readers, evoking the elusive styles of the pieces she reconstructs' - Joseph Roach, Yale University.'An impressive work of scholarship, this elegantly staged study...uses the concept of a culturally constructed, historically specific body to cut across disciplinary boundaries such as those of medical history, physical education, the practices of fashion, etiquette and comportment, and the science and art of representing the passions in order to elucidate pervasive values toward the body and the changes in these values over time' - Carolyn M. Mulac, "Library Journal".Susan Foster traces the development of the story ballet from the pantomimes of early eighteenth-century theatres through the Revolutionary fetes to the well-known romantic ballets La Sylphide and Giselle. She examines changing conceptions of the dancing body as ballet separated from opera and emerged as an autonomous art form during this turbulent period in French history. Approaching choreography as theory, she shows how choreographic choices are integral to the construction of bodily, individual, gendered, and social identities.