MEMOIR

hen Alice Robb was little, she wanted more than anything to be a ballet dancer. After two rejections from the School of American Ballet, the feeder school for the prestigious New York City Ballet, she finally won a place at the age of nine, a few days after 9/11. “The city was in mourning but it was the to ignore her in class. She started truanting from lessons and, in 2004, was finally expelled. Robb subsequently finished high school, went to college and embarked on a successful career as a science writer and journalist. But, she notes: “I couldn’t unlearn the values of ballet.”