A memoir of renewal and self discovery that explores the magic of ballroom dancing and its power to bring grace, balance and passion into everyday life.
I’ve been dancing steadily since that Valentine’s Day. I have taken countless lessons and classes, passed a professional certification exam, done several shows and a competition — yes, dressed in those outrageous gowns and false eyelashes — and then gone back home to the kids, the soccer, the housework, and to work the next day. It hasn’t been easy to make room in the schedule for my passion, but I have done it, because I’m certain now that it is necessary for life. This new period is rich — as rich in some ways as having my two children because it has been a kind of birth, but it has also been extraordinarily painful thanks to the self-examination that dancing has provoked in me. And so, because of dance, I can say, unequivocally and gratefully, that I am alive at last.”
— From Quick, Before the Music Stops (Broadway Books) by Janet Carlson
See my ballroom dancing activities and credentials. Read Fan Mail.
Reviews of Quick, Before the Music Stops:
Carlson is to be commended for not only getting out of her marriage and moving on but also writing about it in such an open and liberating manner. Read More…
While [Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth] Gilbert traveled the world to suss out what she needed to know, Janet Carlson had only to buy the right shoes and show up at a local dance studio. Read More…
It’s like combining a gym membership and therapy. Plus, you get to do it in heels. Read More…
Carlson draws you into the experience until you feel you are in the arms of a muscular Eastern European in tight pants. Is that such a bad thing? Read More…
More Reviews
How gratifying to read a book that uses dancing as a metaphor for life and shows how it inspires the steps forward that every woman needs to take. This riveting personal story is guaranteed to help anyone find their center and balance. Brava Janet!
— Evelyn Lauder
Senior Corporate Vice President of the Estee Lauder Companies, Inc.
With insight and humor, Janet Carlson shares the joy, exhilaration and self-revelations that ballroom dancing has brought her. She draws the reader into her lessons, her partnerships, and her life, and in doing so reveals just how accurately ballroom dancing both reflects and transforms life.
— Bruno Collins
Vice President, American Ballroom Company;
previously National Dance Director, Fred Astaire Dance Studios
Janet Carlson beautifully describes ballroom dancing as intricate, joyful, athletic, and most important, a way to learn how to live life. If you canÕt hit the dance floor, read this book. Better yet, do both.
— Barbara Lazear Ascher
author of Landscape Without Gravity and Playing After Dark