For nearly a century, the training of ballet and modern dancers has followed two divergent paths. Modern practitioners felt ballet was artificial and injurious to the body; ballet teachers felt that modern dancers lacked the rigorous discipline and control that comes only from years of progressive training.

Ballet Beyond Tradition seeks to reconcile these age-old conflicts and bring a new awareness to ballet teachers of the importance of a holistic training regimen that draws on the best that modern dance and movement-studies offers. Paskevska persuasively argues that the most vital dance movement is one that absorbs outside influences as well as preserving its traditions. Ballet Beyond Tradition offers new ways to understand the ballet vocabulary in terms of the most recent understanding of the body and how it moves.