Nicole Cuffy and Ebony LaDelle for DANCES IN-PERSON

Loyalty is thrilled to welcome Nicole Cuffy and Ebony LaDelle for an IN-PERSON event celebrating the release of Dances! Join us at Loyalty's Petworth store at 7 PM on Tuesday, May 30th for an incredible discussion, followed by a meet + greet & book signing! This event is free to attend but RSVPs are required—please use the form below. **Face masks are required for all attendees in the event space.** Please email events@loyaltybookstores.com with any questions.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A ballerina at the height of her powers becomes consumed with finding her missing brother in this “striking debut” (Oprah Daily).

At twenty-two years old, Cece Cordell reaches the pinnacle of her career as a ballet dancer when she’s promoted to principal at the New York City Ballet. She’s instantly catapulted into celebrity, heralded for her “inspirational” role as the first Black ballerina in the famed company’s history. Even as she celebrates the achievement of a lifelong dream, Cece remains haunted by the feeling that she doesn’t belong. As she waits for some feeling of rightness that doesn’t arrive, she begins to unravel the loose threads of her past—an absent father, a pragmatic mother who dismisses Cece’s ambitions, and a missing older brother who stoked her childhood love of ballet but disappeared to deal with his own demons.

Soon after her promotion, Cece is faced with a choice that has the potential to derail her career and shatter the life she’s cultivated for herself, sending her on a pilgrimage to both find her brother and reclaim the parts of herself lost in the grinding machinery of the traditional ballet world.

Written with spellbinding beauty and ballet’s precise structure, Dances centers around women, art, and power, and how we come to define freedom for ourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicole Cuffy is a D.C.-based writer with a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from The New School. She is a lecturer at the University of Maryland and American University. Her work can be found in Mason’s Road, The Master’s Review Volume VI (curated by Roxane Gay), Chautauqua, and Blue Mesa Review, and her chapbook, Atlas of the Body, won the Chautauqua Janus Prize and was a finalist for the Black River Chapbook Competition. When she is not writing, she is reading, and when she is not reading, she is probably dancing.

ABOUT THE IN CONVERSATION PARTNER

Ebony LaDelle is the author of Love Radio—which was People magazine’s best book of the summer, a 2023 Audie Award Finalist, a 2023 Michigan Notable Book, Apple Books’ best book of 2022, an Amazon's Editor Pick and was featured on the Today Show. Prior to being an author, Ebony was a brand marketing director in book publishing and worked at Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, among others. Born in MI, awoken at Howard University, and cultivated in Brooklyn, Ebony can usually be found eating out somewhere or being the undisputed Mom Friend of any group. You can visit her online at www.ebonyladelle.com and follow her on social at @ebonyladelle.

Please note Loyalty has a zero tolerance policy for harassment or intimidation of any kind during this event.

Event date:

Tuesday, May 30, 2023 - 7:00pm

Event address:

843 Upshur Street NW

Washington, DC 20011