Ballet takes center stage with contemporary artists: following in the tradition of Degas, today's artists are using the grace and elegance of ballet to inspire their work. (Ballet Art).(Edgar Degas)

"The dance instills in you something that sets you apart, something heroic and remote. One knows that in your world, Queens are made of distance and greasepaint."

Thus wrote artist Edgar Degas in his 1889 "Sonnet V," in which he described how the "common" ballet dancers of the Paris Opera were transformed through makeup, costumes and distance into "priestesses of grace." Degas should know; having immersed himself in the environment of the Opera for five decades, he explored--and depicted in hundreds of sketches, paintings and sculptures--all aspects of the ballet, from stage performances and life backstage to rehearsals, dressing rooms and individual portraits of ballerinas. With his brilliant use of color, dramatic light effects and innovative compositions, Degas was aptly referred to as "the painter of dancers" by his contemporaries and today remains one of the art world's most celebrated Impressionist figures.

Art historians often note that Degas was rather obsessed with the ballet, and much like him, a contemporary group of artists are mystified by the dance form and choose to depict it in their work. While styles vary, all share a commonality: a passion for dance and the world that surrounds it. And this love, much to the delight of artists, galleries and publishers, is proving contagious to collectors.

An Alluring Form

Whether gracefully bent over their …