Sharon Skeel is a freelance dance researcher with extensive credits in scholarly presentations, writing for journals, and curation.
"""Skeel's lively book brings Littlefield back to life, interweaving her biography with social and theatrical history. Carefully referenced, and written in a sometimes surprisingly informal style, it casts a refreshingly different view over the development of American ballet, which on this side of the Atlantic, at least, is often perceived as originating in New York under Balanchine."" -- Maggie Watson, Oxford Dance Writers ""Catherine Littlefield 'spent most of her forty-six years besotted with dancing,' writes Sharon Skeel, whose new, sweepingly researched biography is thoroughly besotted with Philadelphia's pioneering ballerina, teacher, and choreographer of the 1930s and '40s. Skeel scrupulously chronicles Littlefield's life and work, immersing us fully in her triumphs and disappointments while detailing her innovative role in transforming ballet into an American art."" -- Jay Rogoff, Dance critic, The Hopkins Review ""This critical biography -- decades in the research and writing -- is transparent, honest, reasonable, authoritative, and gracefully told. Every chapter overturns another preconception about the history of American dance."" -- Mindy Aloff, author of Dance Anecdotes: Stories from the Worlds of Ballet, Broadway, the Ballroom, and Modern Dance"