author
André Levinson
1887–1933
A sharp, influential voice in early 20th-century dance writing, this Russian-born critic helped shape how readers thought about ballet, modern dance, and performance in Paris between the wars. His work blends close observation with strong opinions, making it lively even now.
1 Audiobook
Bakst : The story of Leon Bakst's life
by André Levinson
About the author
Born in St. Petersburg in 1887, André Levinson studied and taught before becoming known for his writing on dance and the arts. After leaving Russia in 1918, he lived in Lithuania and Germany before settling in Paris in 1921, where he taught Russian literature at the Sorbonne and built a reputation as a major dance journalist and critic.
Levinson became especially important for his writing on ballet. Sources describe him as a champion of classical or "academic" dance, and as a critic who brought aesthetic and philosophical seriousness to dance criticism. He wrote about the Ballets Russes and other major performers of his time, and his essays helped give dance criticism a wider intellectual audience.
He died in Paris in 1933. Although brief English-language summaries of his life survive more readily than fuller biographies, they consistently present him as one of the most prominent ballet critics of his era, with lasting influence on the way dance was discussed and judged.