Arlene Croce

Dance vanishes the moment it ends, and Croce, The New Yorker's dance critic from 1973 to 1996, made it stay on the page. Her reviews of George Balanchine's ballets and of choreographers from Twyla Tharp to Paul Taylor describe steps, phrasing and musical timing so precisely that readers who had never seen a ballet learned what to watch for. Her book on the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers analyses every number. Her 1994 refusal to review a work she had not seen provoked a fierce debate. She died in December 2024; start with the collection Afterimages.