Enter to Win "A Ballerina for Our Time: Olga Pavlova"

Russian ballerina Olga Pavlova—best known here in the U.S. for her time with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and Metropolitan Classical Ballet in Arlington, Texas—had a rich international career. But her training years didn’t go quite according to plan. In Karen McDonough’s new biography, A Ballerina for Our Time: Olga Pavlova, McDonough reveals how Pavlova struggled to overcome body issues, jealousy and sabotage while a student at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. A mysterious letter turned the Bolshoi’s school director against her and altered the course of her promising career, nearly getting her kicked out of the academy and essentially locking her out of Moscow’s top companies. McDonough relays Pavlova’s story of perseverance—and eventual rise to the Bolshoi Ballet Grigorovich Company, Maya Plisetskaya’s Imperial Russian Ballet and Moscow Classical Ballet—and gives us an inside look at Soviet Russia’s rigorous training system. Pointe is giving away five copies of A Ballerina for Our Time: Olga Pavlova autographed by the author. To enter to win, click here.