Being Antinova

by Eleanor Antin

"For three weeks in October of 1980, Eleanor Antin lived in New York as Eleanora Antinova, the once celebrated but now retired Black Ballerina of Diaghilev's Ballet Russe. Darkening herself everyday and appearing in the appropriately glamourous dress of a ballerina, she lived at the shifting boundaries between art and life, the self and the other. To aid her in recalling the multitude of events that would otherwise have slipped away, she kept a daily journal of her encounters and experiences. This book is that journal."