An international anthology about dance as a world of dreams, ideals or paradises lost, a place where identity and reality are put at stake. Through essays, interviews and analytical reflections such diverse subjects are treated as Bournonville's ideal of a critic, Nijinsky's faun versus the romantic dream of elusive women, the broken marriage between music and dance, dancing as an erotic motif in the paintings of the Danish Golden Age, or the beast in dance from Swan Lake to Butoh.