Music Made Visible

'Jessica Wilkinson’s poems about George Balanchine draw on extensive archival research for her unique non-fictional poetic choreography. Melding the ephemerality of dance with an extraordinary biography of a great 20th century artist, Wilkinson’s talent for conveying dynamic movement in a range of styles suffuses this poetic sequence.' Selection committee for the 2020 Wesley Michel Wright Prize

Music Made Visible is a poetic biography on the life and works of George Balanchine, one of the most influential choreographers of the twentieth century. Jessica L. Wilkinson explores the possibilities and imaginative leaps that poetry can offer to the writing of a life. Her poetic series of Balanchine ‘ballets’ unfold from his early life as a student at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, through his engagement at Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, to his later co-founding and development of the New York City Ballet. Wilkinson’s poems are attuned to the ephemeral qualities of music and movement that were so vital to her subject’s life.