L ife magazine launched in 1936. Its aim: to show the US the world, in pictures. At a time when television was still an experimental medium, a golden age of photojournalism brought the outside world into people’s homes. Life ran weekly until 1972, spanning a transformative time in US culture. Photographers were dispatched across the globe, covering wars, political manoeuvres, social trends, hemlines and Hollywood. And in December 1936, the magazine dedicated its cover feature to dance, with dancers from the new School of American Ballet gracing the front page. As such a vividly visual medium, dance would become a regular feature in Life’s pages across the years.

When I was asked to write the text for a new book featuring a collection of dance-themed images from the Life archive, it was a kid-in-a-candy-shop situation.…