Maureen Gupta, a musicologist and dance historian, specializes in how choreography and music work together in ballets. Her book, "Nicolai Serguéeff and The Sleeping Beauty: A Living Ballet Tradition," has recently been released by University Press of Florida. In it she explores the legacy of a former Russian imperial rehearsal director who fled post revolutionary Russia with the most complete choreographic records of Marius Petipa’s ballet masterpiece, set to music by Tchaikovsky and first performed in the late nineteenth century. The book traces the impact of this act of preservation on more than a century of Sleeping Beauty productions, examining the resilience of the ballet even as artists have adapted and reinterpreted its traditions to suit changing circumstances.

In her article, "Sleeping Princesses and Beauties" (Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015), Gupta focuses on Alexei Ratmansky's version of The Sleeping Beauty staged for American Ballet Theatre, based on the choreographic notations of Nicolai Serguéeff.