John Updike is no stranger to subscribers of the Library of America series, but this time he’s just one contributor out of many. For Dance in America: A Reader’s Anthology, dance critic Mindy Aloff has assembled a collection of essays and other forms written by “dancers and dance creators, impresarios and critics, and enthusiastic literary observers” to tell the story of dance in America “from tap and swing to ballet and modern dance, from Five Points to Radio City Music Hall, and from the Lindy Hop to Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk.”

Among the contributors are Edwin Denby, Joan Acocella, Lincoln Kirstein, Jill Johnston, Clive Barnes, George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Allegra Kent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Hart Crane, Edmund Wilson, Langston Hughes, Susan Sontag, Stuart Hodes, Alastair Macaulay, Zora Neale Hurston, Arlene Croce, Yehuda Hyman, and Updike. Updike’s essay is on “Genial, Kinetic Gene Kelly.”

Here’s the LOA link to purchase