Ballet adaptations of modernist works by authors such as Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf have been thriving in the last twenty years. Why? Modernist literature’s exploration of the mind and its experiments with language seem at odds with the non-verbal medium of dance and its emphasis on the body and movement. By turning to this untold history of dance adaptations, my second book-length project will generate a new understanding of the reception and continuing relevance of modernist literature in the twenty-first century.
