Arabesque

2024 | Fiction & Poetry

Arabesque is a step in classic ballet, an appropriate title for a novel narrating the beauty of ballet and the artistry and athleticism involved; with the dancers’ stories depicting everything a romantic ballet should have: love, passion, obsession, deception, courage, determination, happiness, drama, fun. And sadness.

A woman living alone in a coastal Sussex town in 1998 plants a copper beech sapling at 3 a.m. on a dark, cold night. Why?

A ballet dancer in 1960s East Germany is oppressed, longs for escaping with his little daughter but not his wife. Why? Will he make it?

In 2022 Karsten von Stein, widower and principal of the Royal Ballet, with two young children, meets Ivone Benjamim, a Portuguese, newly-arrived principal dancer. They discover a magical chemistry when dancing and soon it transfers to their private lives.

Against the background of ballet and its dancers, a woman called Grace tells her story from a rehab centre. Obsessive, delusional she begins believing Ivone robbed her of the man of her dreams—Karsten. And then a skeleton is found in a garden...What connects all these people and their stories?

You’ll be the audience facing the stage of this balletic novel.

M G da Mota (Author)