Joan Acocella

Joan Barbara Acocella (née Ross, April 13, 1945 – January 7, 2024) was an American dance critic and author. From 1998 to 2019, she was a dance critic for The New Yorker. She also wrote for The New York Review of Books for 33 years and authored books on dance, literature, and psychology.

Early life and education Joan Barbara Ross was born in San Francisco on April 13, 1945, to Arnold Ross, a cement company executive, and Florence (Hartzell) Ross, a homemaker. and was the New York dance critic for the Financial Times. For 33 years, her writing also appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books. She began writing for The New Yorker in 1992 and served as its dance critic from 1998 to 2019.

In 1997, she accompanied Mikhail Baryshnikov on his first trip back to his birthplace of Riga, Latvia since his defection and exile from the Soviet Union in 1974.

Acocella's books included Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder (1999); Mark Morris (1993), a biography of modern dancer and choreographer Mark Morris; and Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (2007), which explores the virtues common among extraordinary artists. André Levinson on Dance (1991), and Mission to Siam: The Memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell (2001), her grandmother.

Acocella's New Yorker article "Cather and the Academy", which appeared in the November 27, 1995, issue, received a Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York and was included in the "Best American Essays" anthology of 1996.

Personal life and death Acocella died of cancer at home in Manhattan, on January 7, 2024, at age 78. At the time of her death, Acocella's partner was Noël Carroll. 2017 – Fellow, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers 2012 – Holtzbrinck Berlin Prize Fellow, American Academy in Berlin. 2009 – Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the National Book Critics Circle 2007 – Award in Literature, American Academy of Arts and Letters 2002–20?? – Fellow, New York Institute for the Humanities 1993–1994 – Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation.