Joan Acocella was one of the most vital, intellectually acute, and stylish writers and critics of the last half century.  Acocella's writing was incisive, compulsively readable, and always full of surprising insight. It was also plainspoken, down to earth, and often funny. Her death has left a gaping hole in the cultural landscape. 

Although she was known primarily for her dance criticism, which she published in The New Yorker for over two decades, she was also a prolific book reviewer for both The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, covering subjects as varied as Willa Cather, Primo Levi, Joan of Arc, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Dracula, Agatha Christie, hangovers, profanity, and Pinocchio. 

Acocella’s friends, colleagues, and collaborators celebrate her life and writings with a series of personal stories and reflections presented by the Library for the Performing Arts.

Her books include her 1993 biography, Mark Morris; Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (2007); and her posthumous volume, The Bloodied Nightgown (2024).