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Joan Acocella

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Joan Barbara Acocella (née Ross, April 13, 1945 – January 7, 2024) was an American dance critic and author. From 1998 to 2019, she was dance critic for The New Yorker. She also wrote for The New York Review of Books for 33 years and authored books on dance, literature, and psychology.

Joan Acocella
Acocella at the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award nominations
Born
Joan Barbara Ross

(1945-04-13)April 13, 1945
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedJanuary 7, 2024(2024-01-07) (aged 78)
New York City, New York, U.S.
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley (BA)
Rutgers University (PhD)
OccupationDance critic
EmployerThe New Yorker
SpouseNicholas Acocella (divorced)
PartnerNoël Carroll
Children1

Early life and education

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Joan Barbara Ross was born in San Francisco on April 13, 1945, to Arnold Ross, a cement company executive, and Florence (Hartzell) Ross, a homemaker.[1] She grew up in Oakland, California, and received her B.A. in English in 1966 from the University of California, Berkeley.[1] She earned a PhD in comparative literature at Rutgers University in 1984 with a thesis on the Ballets Russes.[1]

Career

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In the 1970s, Acocella was a writer and editor at Random House, where she co-authored a psychology textbook that went on to be reprinted in revised editions for two decades.[1] In the 1980s, she served as senior critic for Dance Magazine, including authoring a piece about her son's performance in The Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet.[1]

Acocella wrote for The Village Voice,[2][3] and was the New York dance critic for the Financial Times. For 33 years, her writing also appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books.[1][4] She began writing for The New Yorker in 1992 and served as its dance critic from 1998 to 2019.[5]

In 1997, she accompanied Mikhail Baryshnikov on his first trip back to his birthplace of Riga, Latvia since his defection and exile from the Soviet Union in 1974.[1][6]

Acocella's books included Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder (1999);[7] Mark Morris (1993), a biography of modern dancer and choreographer Mark Morris;[8] and Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (2007), which explores the virtues common among extraordinary artists.[9][5] Reviewing Twenty-Eight Artists in The New York Times, Kathryn Harrison called Acocella "knowledgeable without being a show-off, meticulous in her research and energetically conversational", and said her "typical essay thus functions as a tantalizing biographical sketch, as well as a critical study, inviting us to pursue a deeper exploration".[9]

Acocella also edited The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky: Unexpurgated Edition (1999),[10] André Levinson on Dance (1991),[11] and Mission to Siam: The Memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell (2001),[12] her grandmother.

Acocella's New Yorker article "Cather and the Academy", which appeared in the November 27, 1995, issue, received a Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York and was included in the "Best American Essays" anthology of 1996.[5] She expanded the essay into Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (2000), receiving a starred review in Publishers Weekly.[13]

Personal life and death

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Acocella died of cancer at home in Manhattan, on January 7, 2024, at age 78.[1] At the time of her death, Acocella's partner was Noël Carroll.[1] She had one son from her marriage to Nicholas Acocella, which ended in divorce.[1]

Awards and honors

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Publications

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  • Acocella, Joan (1999). Creating hysteria : women and multiple personality disorder. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 9780787947941.
  • — (2000). Willa Cather and the politics of criticism. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780375712951.
  • Hartzell, Jessie MacKinnon (2001). Mission to Siam : the memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell. Edited with a biographical essay by Joan Acocella. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 9780824822538.
  • Acocella, Joan (2004). Mark Morris. Wesleyan. ISBN 9780374524180.
  • —, ed. (2006). The diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780788197772.
  • — (2007). 28 artists & 2 saints. Pantheon. ISBN 9780307389275.
  • Acocella, Joan (February 20, 2024). The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-60809-5.[20][21]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sandomir, Richard (January 7, 2024). "Joan Acocella, Dance Critic for The New Yorker, Dies at 78". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 8, 2024. Retrieved January 8, 2024.
  2. ^ "My Kind of Town: New York". Archived from the original on October 19, 2021. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
  3. ^ "(untitled interview)" (PDF). National Arts Journalism Program. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  4. ^ "Joan Acocella". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d "Joan Acocella". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  6. ^ Acocella, Joan (January 11, 1998). "How Ballet Saved Baryshnikov". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
  7. ^ Kramer, Peter D. (November 21, 1999). "I Contain Multitudes". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 9, 2024. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  8. ^ Rockwell, John (January 23, 1994). "The Big Hairy Guy of Dance". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 17, 2021. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  9. ^ a b Harrison, Kathryn (February 18, 2007). "Lives in the Arts". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 17, 2021. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
  10. ^ Deresiewicz, William (February 28, 1999). "Dancing With Madness". archive.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on December 16, 2023. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  11. ^ Vail, June (April 1993). "André Levinson On Dance: Writings From Paris in the Twenties, edited by Joan Acocella and Lynn Garafola. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1991, for Wesleyan University Press, ix + 163 pp., photographs, bibliography, index. $25.00". Dance Research Journal. 25 (1): 39–40. doi:10.2307/1478192. ISSN 1940-509X. JSTOR 1478192. S2CID 191366116.
  12. ^ James, Helen (2006). "Review of Mission to Siam: The Memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell". Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 17 (2): 179–181. ISSN 0741-2037. JSTOR 40860827.
  13. ^ "Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism by Joan Ross Acocella". Publishers Weekly. January 31, 2000. Archived from the original on January 9, 2024. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
  14. ^ "2017 Literature Award Winners – American Academy of Arts and Letters". artsandletters.org. Archived from the original on July 21, 2017. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  15. ^ "The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Announces 2017–2018 Fellows". nypl.org. The New York Public Library. Archived from the original on October 17, 2021. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  16. ^ "Past Fellows – American Academy". American Academy. Archived from the original on June 12, 2017. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  17. ^ "The National Book Critics Circle Awards | 2009 Winners & Finalists". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved January 12, 2024.
  18. ^ "Joan Acocella – American Academy". American Academy. Archived from the original on June 10, 2017. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  19. ^ "Joan Acocella". New York Institute for the Humanities. Archived from the original on October 17, 2021. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
  20. ^ Biggs, Joanna (February 21, 2024). "Book Review: 'The Bloodied Nightgown,' by Joan Acocella". The New York Times. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  21. ^ Arrowsmith, Charles (February 26, 2024). "'The Bloodied Nightgown' is a monument to Joan Acocella's savage wit and unsentimental generosity". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
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