Gelsey Kirkland (and Greg Lawrence)

The Little Ballerina and Her Dancing Horse

Doubleday, New York, 1993, illus Jacqueline Rogers

“Eleven-year-old Rosalie Daniels (or Rosie, as she likes to be called) faces a terrible decision: whether to give up
horseback riding (and her best friend, her horse Sugar) in order to pursue a bright future as a ballerina, or to
abandon her ballet aspirations and continue to ride - an activity her ballet teacher has said will develop muscles
all wrong for ballet. The situation seems hopeless until a wise uncle suggests an old-fashioned solution to Rosie’s
problem.”

Gelsey Kirkland (29 December, 1952) was an American ballet dancer. She was a principal dancer with the New York Ballet, and well known for her work with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Her career faltered when she suffered from anorexia and drug addiction, though she overcame this and danced with the Royal Ballet in England. With her then husband, Greg Lawrence, she wrote two volumes of autobiography (Dancing on my Grave and The Shape of Love), as well as the one children’s book, The Little Ballerina and her Dancing Horse.

Many thanks to Susan Bourgeau for all her help with this section.

Finding the book: tends to be ex-library, but reasonably easy to find in the USA. It wasn’t published in the UK.

Sources and links:
Wikipedia article on Gelsey Kirkland

An account of a ballet class with Gelsey Kirkland

A video of Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov