12 Pictures That Prove Dancers And Books Are Perfect Together

Reading is always "en pointe."

1.

Jordan Matter / Via dancersamongus.com

“I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength.” (Terry Goodkind)

Professional dancer Casia Vengoechea of Nederlands Dans Theater leaps in Shakespeare & Co bookstore.

2.

Vihao Pham / Via hownowvihao.deviantart.com

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” (Voltaire)

3.

Via theberry.com

“...poetry balances itself on the pinprick of the moment. Slowing down, stopping yourself completely, to read and understand a poem is like trying to acquire an old-fashioned skill...." (Ian McEwan), Saturday

4.

Leslie Jones/Boston Public Library / Via search.digitalcommonwealth.org

“Reading is awesome and flexible and fits around chores and earning money and building the future and whatever else I’m doing that day.” (Jo Walton)

Los Angeles dancer Gertrude Fisher reads Marquee Ballyhoo by her husband M.S. Meritt.

5.

Jordan Matter / Via dancersamongus.com

Professional dancers Rebecca Balbach, Kimberly Morris, and Marianna Russell pose in Nyack Library for photographer Jordan Matter who gave a talk there about his book, Dancers Among Us.

6.

Jordan Matter / Via blog.jordanmatter.com

“Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.” (Laura Lippman)

Professional dancer Giselle Mejia reads at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis.

7.

Cover of Villa Design, 2010 / Via teacoffeebooks.tumblr.com

Prima Ballerina Bianca Fota goes en pointe on a stack of books.

8.

Jordan Matter / Via dancersamongus.com

Professional dancer, Aisha Mitchell of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, is joyful in West Nyack, NY Barnes and Noble for part of Jordan Matter's project, Dancers Among Us: A Celebration of Joy in the Everyday.

9.

Via yogaposeweekly.letsglo.com

“Reading is awesome and flexible and fits around chores and earning money and building the future and whatever else I’m doing that day.” (Jo Walton)

10.

Kike Calvo / Via kikecalvo.photoshelter.com

"...to yearn toward art, music, ballet and good books, and get them only in tantalizing snatches...” (Sylvia Plath), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Ballerina reads at the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale.

11.

Via antikvarne-knjige.tumblr.com

“And there are plays – and books and songs and poems and dances – that are perhaps upsetting or intricate or unusual, that leave you unsure, but which you think about perhaps the next day, and perhaps for a week, and perhaps for the rest of your life." (David Mamet, Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama)

12.

Via beextoor.blogspot.com

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.” (Rumi)