many of the dancers in the company were doing all kinds of drugs to cope with the pressures of dancing. She became a prima ballerina. Kirkland was featured on the May 1, 1978, cover of Time. In 1986, Kirkland retired from performing, becoming a ballet teacher, choreographer, and coach. In 2007, Kirkland choreographed (with Chernov and ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie) a new production of Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty, in which, after an absence from the stage of more than 20 years, she danced the role of "Carabosse, the Wicked Fairy". In 2010, Kirkland and Chernov established the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet (GKACB), where they served as co-Artistic Directors. The Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet was accompanied by the Gelsey Kirkland Ballet company. The ballet company presented classical ballets in New York City. The company closed in 2021. Books Kirkland's first autobiography, Dancing on My Grave (1986), written with her then-husband Greg Lawrence, was a memoir chronicling her artistic transformation from George Balanchine's "baby ballerina" to one of the more acclaimed ballerinas of her generation. The book describes in detail her struggles with her domestic family problems, sibling rivalry, anorexia, bulimia, plastic surgeries, drug addiction, her quest for artistic perfection, and her complicated love affairs with Mikhail Baryshnikov and numerous other men, most of whom she encountered in the ballet world. Dancing on My Grave was dedicated to Joseph Duell, a dancer with the New York City Ballet who had committed suicide that same year, in 1986, in hopes "that the cry for help might yet be heard". Kirkland's second autobiography, The Shape of Love (1990), dealt with her move to England to dance with The Royal Ballet, her attempts to get a fresh start with her first husband, and her return to American Ballet Theatre with a clean slate and a renewed outlook on life. Kirkland and her husband eventually collaborated again on a children's book, The Little Ballerina and Her Dancing Horse (1993), about a little girl who loves ballet but might not be able to keep dancing if she keeps riding her horse Sugar. References Bibliography External links American ballerinas American expatriates in Australia American expatriates in the United Kingdom 1952 births Living people People from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania New York City Ballet principal dancers American Ballet Theatre principal dancers Principal dancers of The Royal Ballet Prima ballerinas School of American Ballet alumni