Princeton Architectural Press; 160 pages; $24.95
Photographer Lucy Gray spent 14 years interviewing, shadowing and photographing three San Francisco Ballet principals—Kristin Long, Tina LeBlanc and Katita Waldo—who each decided at the height of her career to have children. Balancing Acts is a telling collection of the peaks and valleys of managing both motherhood and a professional performance career, told through first-person narratives with the dancers and their husbands and more than 100 black-and-white photographs. The dancers speak frankly about struggling to find suitable childcare, losing the baby weight and training to get back into performance shape post-baby, but Gray’s images reveal the most. She documents the dancers onstage, in rehearsal, backstage, at home—and, in two instances, giving birth. If you’ve struggled to balance your dance life with raising a family, chances are you’ll find Balancing Acts riveting.