January 31, 2023 • 40 mins
PART THREE - "There are no windows, because we don't need windows, because the outside world doesn't matter. He was God in the theater. Ever observing, ever present. Are you a patriot? Are you a citizen? Are you willing to do whatever I ask you to do?"
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Before we get started, I want to let you know
that we'll be talking about eating disorder behaviors pretty candidly
in this episode. If you find that topic triggering, please
feel free to skip this one. Risking your health just
isn't worth it. What was your first impression of Balanching
(00:25):
like the first time you actually saw him in person?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Most of it was first hearsay because there was such
a cult around all of it. In the school, of course,
it was an insular world into which we were permitted
to enter and chosen, and so I don't even know
really what that first impression could have been, other than
(00:49):
nervous anticipation and excitement and a desire to be seen.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Stephanie the Land is a form dancer. When she stepped
into Balancine School for the first time, he was in
his mid sixties. Stephanie was fourteen, and she knew the
only way to dance for Balancine in his company was
to trade in his school, the School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
People were not taken from the outside. We had to
go through the school for at least two or three
years even to be considered for the company. Nobody ever
came from the outside. We always had to be an insider.
It was definitely a unique situation in that way.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And getting into that school wasn't easy to do. Do
you remember your first day at the School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I first remember my audition. I think I went in
sixty eight. It was a private audition, and I went
in and I was fourteen and a half and I
only had had occasional classes. And I was told point shoes.
(02:01):
I didn't have point shoes. I'd never been on point.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Stephanie didn't know a lot of the names of the steps.
So Diana Adams, a famous balanchine dancer who'd retired from
the stage and was running the school, demonstrated every step for.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Her and she showed me everything. I imitated her by
all standards of what I understand now. I was extremely
unsophisticated and it was terrifying. I came out and she
came to my mother and she said, well, she's years behind.
I'll put her in with the eleven year olds. It's
(02:36):
unlikely that it's going to work. Wow, but she does
have some turnout. That was it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Fourteen year old Stephanie towered over the eleven year olds
in her class, but it didn't deter her.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I love to move, I love to dance. I was
fascinated by where I was, and I was enchanted by
the people around me.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Stephanie didn't know what she was doing, but she imitated well.
She could copy the other students and replicate the movement,
even when she didn't know what steps came next or
even what it was called.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And three months later I was moved up. It was exciting,
and I thought everybody was the most beautiful creatures on
the earth that I'd ever seen, and they were so talented.
So I'd come home report about all these people I'd
seen and how beautiful they were. And also there's something
(03:39):
about being elite, you know. I'm just going to say that,
as much as I don't like to say that about
being chosen and elite, you know, there's this ego. Part
of your sense of self recognizes that that you are
(04:01):
being selected and selected in our particular arena where it
is so super refined and quite close to the outside world.
We were christened, we were graced to be allowed in
the school and allowed to be in that studio, and
(04:21):
allowed to be in relationship to that organization, to the organization.
It's like when you first fall in love and you
feel like you're the person. Oh my god, it's me.
How can that not be? Throwing from my heart?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Podcasts and Rococo Punch, This is the turning Room of Mirrors.
I'm Erica Lance, Part three call. When Stephanie started at
(05:08):
the School of American Ballet, she was entering something big.
New York was in the middle of what came to
be known as the dance boom in the sixties and seventies.
New York was a hub for all kinds of dance.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I was going to two or three performances a week.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Dance historian Lynn Garifola remembers being at the start of
her career as a critic and writer in the seventies.
It seemed like everyone was talking about dance.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
There were performances everywhere, Tickets were still relatively cheap. There
were ballet companies coming from many different places. So I
think there was this sense of energy and possibility.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And at the center of this movement was Balancing. By then,
he'd been in the US for thirty years, He'd built
a ballet school and a ballet company. As far as
the dance world was concerned, he'd become the Shakespeare of
neoclassical ballet, and audience has got to watch him write
his masterpieces right in front of them.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Balancine and the New York City Ballet became really one
of the pre eminent artistic institutions. These were just one
of the preeminent cultural moments in New York City.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is historian Jim Steikin.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
He got people who aren't necessarily into ballet to care
about ballet. He made ballet something that was on TV
on a regular basis. He turned certain ballerinas into cultural
icons that girls wanted to emulate and inspire them to
study ballet.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
One thing I would like to say is that it's
pretty clear when you read all the reviews beginning in
the late sixties, nineteen seventies into the nineteen eighties, but
Balancin is portrayed as someone who could do no wrong,
even when he does really terrible ballet. The language is
kind of nice. I mean, who read some of those things.
(07:09):
It's like he could do no wrong. It's like he
was a god.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Balancine was ever present in the school. He could walk
into any class any day and wait to see what
would catch his eye.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
As the world around her worshiped Balancine. Stephanie Land was
still a teenager, hoping to join his company someday. One
day she was asked to be part of these performances
they called lecture demos, where students would go to public
schools to demonstrate ballet. First, they had to learn the choreography.
There were three couples dancing. Stephanie and her partner were
(07:48):
in the back behind the lead couple.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I wasn't very good at ballet in my mind, not yet.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
She remembers. That day. A talented dancer named Fernando Bojones
was there sitting on the steae radio floor at the front,
and then Balanjing walked in. She'd never met him before.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And I thought, well, nobody looks at the people in
the back. And I thought, well, he's not watching me.
Valentine's not watching me, so it really doesn't matter. I
can do whatever I want back here. And Fernando said, well,
he didn't take his eyes off of you.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
For one minute.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
You know, by the time he saw me, I don't
know how old he was. He had seen so many dancers,
he'd lived such a long life. If you spark his curiosity,
that's a good thing. He never wanted to be told
who to like, and very often, in fact, I think
he went the other way. So if the heads of
(08:46):
the schools, who were his Russian colleagues at the time,
would say we like this and this and this person,
likely he would turn his head and look for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Balancing wanted good dancers, but Stephanie says he was also
looking for someone unformed, someone's still.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Raw, somebody who doesn't quite have it all, and he
could shape them, He could form them. She doesn't quite
know what she's doing, but there's something and it was
very what you say, Chavian Pygmalion little bit, you know,
Eliza Doolittle. There's perhaps a sculpture in that marble. He
(09:23):
could make sixty mistakes and one was going to come
out of full sculpture. And that was basically how he
saw it. And he even would talk about, you know,
it could be a field of grass, but one flower.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Could Stephanie be that flower. Stephanie quickly learned how much
the school of American Ballet was about balancing and his choreography.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
People were trained to hone his particular sensibilities, even his ethics,
so that there would be a readiness definitely a readiness
in all of us to fall right into the company,
efficient and ready to be useful, immediately, ready to execute
(10:14):
and embody his visions.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Usually when you're a teenager, you don't meet the one
person who will make all of your career decisions. But
that's kind of what balancing was.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Balancing was basically the be all, end all answer to
the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
That's why, as a student, Stephanie Land learned there were
many expectations for dancers at the School of American Ballet,
(10:58):
some explicit, some so ingrained in the culture they didn't
have to be said aloud.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
There's a certain stringent criteria for body types and adhering
to those body types. There were criteria that were very
very clear and in no uncertain terms. What were the
criteria generally long limbed, tall, long neck, small heads, that
(11:24):
was understood, fair skin. I think I've even heard something
like when you slice an apple open, that kind of
the whiteness of the fruit. There was certainly exceptions, but
that was it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's well documented that Balancine had a preference for pale,
thin dancers, for dancers he loved. He'd praised them with
phrases like alabaster princess, or pale skin that reflected the light.
He had a lot of opinions about dancers bodies. Here
he is in a nineteen sixty three interview on WNYC
talking about how he evaluates female dances, specifically girls. He
(12:02):
starts by comparing the pros and cons of two girls' bodies.
One girl is tall, It's.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Very very tall, with beautiful legs and a fantastic extension.
One but doesn't turn as fast and has a beautiful expression,
marble face, you know, almost like angel you see.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Where another girl is short.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
The other one would be shorter, with shorter legs, dark face.
She can't jump very high and stretch her legs, but
she could be very faster, and maybe her ability to express.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
With a face, maybe she exceeds the first in terms
of artistic expression.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
I mean, they're all different animals.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Balance, She says, you can't say who is better.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
It's like to say what's better a leopard or jaguar,
or line or a pussycat or ada.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
He had animals and images for everyone. One dancer said
she was a porcupine, her friend a delicious mushroom. Whether
this was playful or dehumanizing. It's hard to tell, but
if you made the cut, it might have been because
of your idiosyncrasies, your individual style. It might be a
shimmer of something balancing could mold into a timeless sculpture.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
When Valentine choreographs, it's like it fits like a glove,
you know, It's like it's meant for you, and that's
so special. It's a glove that fits.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Deborah Austin entered the school as a shy thirteen year old.
She'd always depended on dance to draw her out of
her cocoon. Then she found herself vying for a position
with Valancine's company.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
They told parents that most likely I would never get
into the New York City Ballet because I would not
fit in.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
The message came from a teacher at the school that
she would not fit in because of the color of
her skin, because she's black. They said she could never
dance in the court of ballet, the group of dancers
you often see dancing behind the soloists, because she wouldn't match.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
You know, I would have to be a soloist if
that was possible, And I'm looking at them at thirteen
years old, thinking, I know I have talent, but not
a soloist.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
You've got to beginning me.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Jumping from student to soloists seemed impossible, but Deborah wanted
to dance for me.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
It was like there was not going to be a no.
I mean, I was going to achieve this on my
own merit, no matter what color I was, no matter
what I did. You had to sparkle something for him
to be interested in you. I mean, just being there
was not exactly ideal. You had to really show your worth.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Balancing had been watching her, and she did get in.
At age sixteen, she was the first black female dancer
admitted into the company. She danced in the Core in
Swan Lake, a role she'd been told she could never dance,
and she danced soloist roles, one that Balanging specifically choreographed
for her.
Speaker 7 (15:28):
He was so kind, just the way he took your
hand and said, come here, dear. You know yet you
were still scared of him, or at least I was.
He could be tough, but he was a father figure,
you know, to some of us, and we were his disciples.
(15:51):
I think he cared more about individuality than he cared
about a look. I think he cared about how you
were as an artist. I really don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
There was a specific type that he wanted.
Speaker 7 (16:09):
I mean, supposedly he wanted the skin tone to be
the color of a fresh peeled apple. My skin color
was not the color of a freshly peeled apple by
no stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So there you have it.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Still, the reality was that Balancine's company was almost entirely white.
For the nine years Debor dance at the New York
City Ballet, she was the only black female dancer there.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I might have paid something.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
I literally made a driveway, but.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I was there for nine years by myself.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
It might have hindered me, you know, in some ways
because of what I was told when I was younger.
I feel like it wanted to fit in, keep down inside.
Possibly I went back into my cocoon and myself for
many years in the company.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Debra believes that Balanging didn't have one type in mind,
that he was open to many kinds of dancers, and
this is one of those areas where Balancine seems to
hold opposites at the same time. Did he want dancers
to conform to his aesthetics or did he value variety?
What was clear was that being thin was important.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
I mean, I just wanted to be thinner because I
knew being thinner was going to get me parts and
he was going to like me more. And you want
it so badly, you know, you please him. Then he
used to call us all briotious because we were all
like young and our bodies changed from being these skinny
little things to like becoming women. But he wanted us
(17:54):
thinner than we probably were being cubes and young girls.
Now looked pictures of myself when I was younger in
those photographs and I go, oh my god, they called
me fat, Like how is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We were definitely indoctrinated with a certain esthetic that was
known as the Balanchine body.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Stephanie and Deborah overlapped at the company in one piece.
They danced back to back solos while Debora spins off
stage in a joyful mix of PK turns and jumps. Stephanie,
almost mirroring Deborah, twirls on stage all length and speed.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
The preference for very long legs for thin I did
not match that. In all moments. I was a little
more round than the preferred body. There were times when
I was taken out of ballet's because of my weight,
and this was before it was politically incorrect to address it,
(19:02):
so basically I'd just be called fat and pulled out.
So I had those phases in those conflicts and self
deprecation certainly, and went through them.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Some see balancing as the person most responsible for changing
the expectation of ballerina's bodies not just to be slim,
but to be absolutely as thin as possible.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
If you look at photos of the late nineteenth century ballerinas,
they're very, very different from the ballerinas of the nineteen
twenties or the nineteen forties. In the nineteen fifties, slender
dancers all had little shapes, they had waists. No one
in New York City ballet in the late nineteen sixties
or nineteen seventies or early eighties had a waste. They
(19:51):
were much more straight, and that was what Maalanging apparently wanted.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Historian Len Gariff points out it's hard to pin the
extreme body standards all on balancing.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
In the nineteen sixties and seventies, extreme thinness became apparent
across the fashion industry. If one picks up fashion magazines
from the mid nineteen sixties on and you see Twiggy.
You know this is a moment when the beauty industry
is saying that thinness is really what is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Either way, Balanchine's dancer is worthier than their predecessors, and
Balancing pressure dancers to lose weight. One time, he told
a dancer named Heidi Vossler she was too fat to
dance the ballet serenad just moments before she had to
go on stage and perform it. She was so upset
(20:48):
she could barely get through the steps. Another former dancer,
Suzanne Farrell, received a letter from Balancing and included a
personal poem and a ps that read, quote, I hope
by now you are thin and beautiful and light to lift.
Suzanne later said she felt frightened and hurt. She wrote quote,
(21:10):
I should have known it. I shouldn't have had to
be told. I felt stupid and inadequate, and I was
so upset that I proceeded to try to lose weight
right there. Thus my life was now hinging on two
big problems, getting my entrance right and losing weight. Suzanne
would eventually become Balanchine's most famous dancer. His muse he
(21:32):
was in love with her and her dancing. Soon, younger
dancers were trying to mold themselves after her. Gelsie Kirkland
was one of them. She famously wrote about it in
her memoir. Balanchine teased Gelsey for having a big head.
Everyone wanted a small head like Suzanne. Gelsey was desperate
to look just like her, Balanchine's favorite ballerina. She wrote, quote,
(21:58):
he had such an obsession with her face that everybody,
all of my friends, were trying to imitate the shape
of her mouth. I went to the dentist and said
that I want buck teeth, and Gelsie knew she had
to be thin, she says. Balanchine wrapped his knuckles on
her sternum and said, must see bones. He did not
merely say eat less, she says, he repeatedly said eat nothing.
(22:23):
I think I tried harder to please balancing than anybody.
The physical cost was that it killed you to do it.
An interviewer asked her once if Balanchine cared about her body.
She said he cared how it looked, not how it felt.
When she was too sick to dance, she writes, Balanchin
(22:43):
gave her pills. He told her they were vitamins, but
later she realized they were amphetamines. Eventually, Gelsey would depend
on drugs to get through her performances, and when Balanchine
thought that her head was too big for her body,
something she says he pointed out to her all the time,
I'm she got silicone injections and had her ear lopes trimmed.
(23:05):
Kelsey said, I starved by day, then binged on junk
food and threw up by night. I took injections of
pregnant cow's urine, reputed to be a miraculous diet aid.
I emptied myself with enemas and steam baths, anything to
mold the body her boss wanted. You might think, based
(23:29):
on these clearly desperate measures, that Gelsey was unappreciated, but
actually no, she was a legend, one of Balanchine's favorites,
frequently cast in lead roles. But these were the kinds
of measures she felt she had to take. Plenty of
dancers resorted to plastic surgery or other extreme measures to
stay slim. The pressure was real, and they knew what
(23:51):
was required of them.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
You eat, sleep, and drink ballet. It is first, It's
before everything damn precedes everything, you give your all.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
After Balanjing noticed Stephanie, he visited her class frequently, often
his eyes were on her. She couldn't understand why.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I really was behind and I really was not capable
of delivering the goods consistently. But when I was allowed
to do whatever I wanted to do in my own
particular way, that worked. And then he started coming around,
and then the teachers would say, you know, go to
the front of the room, and I didn't want to
go to the front of the room, and I would
(24:33):
have practical panic attacks when he would come in, and
I'd hide and balancing would start, even coming into the
back of the studio if I wouldn't go forward, whatever
he saw, I can't say. What I do know is
that I haven't over the topness. I've been told I
(24:59):
don't do things in little ways. So I think what
he saw was this person that if let loose, was
going to run.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Stephanie was willing to go there. When she danced, she
didn't hold back. Valancine had this thing he said to
his dancers all the time. People quoted again and again
in the middle of rehearsal or the middle of class.
(25:29):
If a dancer seemed not to be giving absolutely everything.
He looked at them and say.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
What are you saving for, dear? Or are you gonna lose?
You're gonna fall down. The floor's really close by, and
so you fall down, you get up. We were trained
for that risk all, basically risk all, And then I
got in and I didn't know which way was up.
(26:12):
I definitely loved drama. I loved heightened experiences, extremities, zigzagging.
I don't know that I loved it so much as
I was drawn by it to it and embodied that
as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Stephanie got into the company when she was eighteen. It
meant a life of extremes.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
It was glamorous, and then we did a tour and
then suddenly I was in and I was really in.
It was really like quicksand.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Being in meant Stephanie had an intense schedule as a
company member. You'd have morning class at ten am, rehearsals
all day, get ready for a performance, perform in the evening,
and finally leave the theater at maybe eleven at night.
On top of that, you never know your exact schedule
until the evening before when it would be posted, so
you can't make plans for your life outside the company
(27:09):
to be near the studio. All the dancers lived in
the same area, a stretch of blocks on the Upper
West Side that dancers called the Ballet Belt.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Because there is very little control of one's life in
a company that size in terms of casting scheduling, there
is a feeling of lack of control and a lack
of ability to make choices for oneself. Decisions about you
(27:40):
are being made for you, and so what happened was
I would lash out by going dancing, go at clubbing,
sleep with someone and staying up all night. That could
be self harming in certain ways, but it was a
(28:00):
way to work out that energy of frustration that I
was not getting to choose. I think that's a normal
adolescent behavior, to tell you the truth. But my escapes
were really physical venting, really really physical venting. That was
a coping mechanism for me.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It could feel like you lived or died by what
Balanchine thought of you. A dancer named Barbara Walzac wrote
about it. She says, I remember talking to him once
when I must have been about sixteen. He said, you know, dear,
I know you someday want to dance Swan Lake. But
you know, if you ever do Swan Lake, I will
never come to see you, because you will be terrible.
(28:51):
Barbara writes, I was absolutely destroyed. Still, Barbara felt she
had to dance for balancing and not another ballet company.
Balancine looked through you when he watched you dance. She said,
he saw things no one else saw. And she says
the feel of having him set the steps on you,
of the music, of the counts, of the kind of
(29:13):
kinesetic movement and quality was addictive that dancer. Barbara danced
with him for fourteen years. When she was eventually let go,
she says it was so wrenching she had a nervous breakdown.
The reality was that even if you gave everything, you
(29:34):
could be fired without warning and without explanation. You might
hear it directly from someone other than Balanchine that he
decided it was time for you to leave. You might
just get a pink slip in the mail.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I could be in the wings or the studio and
feel like phenomenally insecure. I would go home and cry
and just feel that I couldn't possibly ever measure up.
But the minute I was on stage it felt like another.
I'm entirely I just felt very connected, very alive. I
loved being on stage that I love to dance.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
She loved feeling that she was doing something deeper, something important,
And that was a feeling you had in the company.
It was more than a job. You were buying into
a philosophy, a way of life. There was a sense
you were part of something sacred, like Balanchine was channeling
something higher and turning it into steps in front of
your eyes.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That's what it felt like, very frequently with Balanchine in
the room. It really was. He was just like a
funnel or a vessel, and.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like divine inspiration.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Absolutely absolutely, and for the observer, looking effortless and very graceful.
I just really feel at that I was a witness too,
and a participant in some thing quite unusual and rare
(31:05):
in the world.
Speaker 8 (31:08):
Could you tell me about Balancing's philosophy, Hm, just dance, dear,
don't think what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think it means a myriad of things. If I
were being narrow or defensive, it would be just so
that he could get everything precisely as he wanted it,
and he didn't want the mind or the personal vantage
point of a dancer to interfere with what he was
looking for. And yet I also see it as very zam.
(31:44):
Don't clutter, don't get in your own way. Just dance, dear,
just dance here.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Balancing wanted his dancers to be in the moment completely,
to live like the present was all. They had to
believe that this moment was of utmost importance, and in
that way dance at the highest level. Balanging was known
for choreographing incredibly speedy movement in his ballets. It was
something the dancers had to train for and he drilled
them on it incessantly. They had to learn to move
(32:19):
faster than they ever had before.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
We had to get it into our bones, into our
nervous system, because it's not a brain process. It's really
like a trigger finger. He likened it very often to
a horse when the gun goes off at a race.
You have to be out of the gate when it starts,
(32:42):
not thinking about going out of the gate, and you
have to be ready. We would have classes with pot
of beret for a half hour. Oh my gosh, practicing direction, speed,
weight transfer, being super super quick, and you get the
thighs to get together faster. The back leg is almost
the front leg before the front leg even gets a
(33:02):
chance to start transferring weight. We could have sixty four
tondus the speed of light front side end back and
one empty emptree and four and then you could go
and just go, and you'd have to do it. And
if you're not doing it, somebody is. That's the other
(33:22):
thing about the company. If you're not doing it, if
somebody replace you.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Stephanie learned that Balancine might ask you to do just
about anything in class, even things that seemed impossible. So,
for example, let's say you're jumping. You're doing these little
jumps in place, straight up into the air, switching your
feet from front to back and back to front. That's
called a changem. Then you start jumping higher and you
(33:53):
start beating your feet together while you're in the air.
That's an unto shakat. Then you add more beats, and
at chassis all of us is normal. Usually you'd start
these jumps by bending your knees a little what's called
a plier, a small knee bend.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Usually you have a small, little one, and you practice
your little beats and you land. But he's famous for
giving what we call a grand plier and to entre chassis,
and that's a big knee bend. Okay, what we call
fifth position.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Instead of bending your knees a little, you crouch next
to the floor. In fifth position in a grand plier,
your legs are flattened to the sides and you're balancing
on the balls of your feet. And from that almost torturous,
thigh burning position, you're supposed to jump all the way
up into the.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Air to three beats.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Beating your feet together while you're in the air and landing.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
He would do it out of these extreme positions just
to see even if you had the volition to do it.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
It was also a test of are you a patriot?
Are you a citizen? Are you willing to do these
unheard of things? Are you willing to do whatever I
ask you to do? Set yourself beyond the margins of
(35:15):
safety and it might actually be possible.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Sometimes, when I'm explaining to people that were not exposed
to this in that particular culture, I laugh at my
former self because not only would you want to demonstrate
something when he asked for it, you would show that
you were excited about showing that you were showing you're
(35:44):
showing your fervor. Kind of exactly, you were demonstrating your fervor.
It was a layer on layer un layer of energy, fervor, volition.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, it's like you have to demonstrate your passion for
the art and your reverence for it.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Just being there is not enough. You have to really
amplify it to let it be known in the visible world.
He would request things that could be almost undoable, and
most of it was really challenging our willingness to risk.
(36:23):
It was really about risk and passing through any kind
of imagined limitations or real limitations, doing the impossible.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
The dancers learned it was music first, choreography second, you third,
the dancers were in service to the music and to ballet.
To many in the audience, it was balanging who was
the star.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
He stood in the wings every single performance. He was
always in the front wing, watching and waiting to be
either surprised, entertained, intrigued or otherwise I suppose. But he
was always in the wings. So we were always not
only literally on our toes, but we were always aware
(37:23):
of his part in our lives and his part in
your lives being what exactly ever present? Yeah, ever observing
ever present, and also realizing that we were we were
taking part in something that was his creation, that was
(37:47):
run by his esthetic, and that the criteria was to
be met to the absolute best of our ability. In
all moments, He was God in the theater. And in fact,
(38:07):
I don't know if I told you that when the
theater apparently was built, you know, we only had windows
and very little slipper windows on the fourth floor. In
the offices. There are no windows otherwise because basically we
don't need windows because the outside world doesn't matter. We
are not part of the outside world. Wow, it's separate
(38:32):
from us, and we are removed from it. And once
you go downstairs into the theater, enter through the stage entrance,
and go into the studios, the dressing rooms in the stage,
there is no need for the outside world because we
are removed from it and apart from it, and in
our own unique sphere, we had our own universe.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
The Turning is the production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and produced by Alan Lance Lesser and Me.
Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed
by James Trout. Jessica Krisa is our Assistant producer. Andrea
Assuage is our digital producer, fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado.
(39:53):
Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Alpert at
Rococo Punch and Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etour at I
Hard Podcasts. For photos and more details on the series,
follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can
(40:14):
reach out via email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com.
I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.
Before we get started, I want to let you know
that we'll be talking about eating disorder behaviors pretty candidly
in this episode. If you find that topic triggering, please
feel free to skip this one. Risking your health just
isn't worth it. What was your first impression of Balanching
(00:25):
like the first time you actually saw him in person?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Most of it was first hearsay because there was such
a cult around all of it. In the school, of course,
it was an insular world into which we were permitted
to enter and chosen, and so I don't even know
really what that first impression could have been, other than
(00:49):
nervous anticipation and excitement and a desire to be seen.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Stephanie the Land is a form dancer. When she stepped
into Balancine School for the first time, he was in
his mid sixties. Stephanie was fourteen, and she knew the
only way to dance for Balancine in his company was
to trade in his school, the School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
People were not taken from the outside. We had to
go through the school for at least two or three
years even to be considered for the company. Nobody ever
came from the outside. We always had to be an insider.
It was definitely a unique situation in that way.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And getting into that school wasn't easy to do. Do
you remember your first day at the School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I first remember my audition. I think I went in
sixty eight. It was a private audition, and I went
in and I was fourteen and a half and I
only had had occasional classes. And I was told point shoes.
(02:01):
I didn't have point shoes. I'd never been on point.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Stephanie didn't know a lot of the names of the steps.
So Diana Adams, a famous balanchine dancer who'd retired from
the stage and was running the school, demonstrated every step for.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Her and she showed me everything. I imitated her by
all standards of what I understand now. I was extremely
unsophisticated and it was terrifying. I came out and she
came to my mother and she said, well, she's years behind.
I'll put her in with the eleven year olds. It's
(02:36):
unlikely that it's going to work. Wow, but she does
have some turnout. That was it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Fourteen year old Stephanie towered over the eleven year olds
in her class, but it didn't deter her.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
I love to move, I love to dance. I was
fascinated by where I was, and I was enchanted by
the people around me.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Stephanie didn't know what she was doing, but she imitated well.
She could copy the other students and replicate the movement,
even when she didn't know what steps came next or
even what it was called.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And three months later I was moved up. It was exciting,
and I thought everybody was the most beautiful creatures on
the earth that I'd ever seen, and they were so talented.
So I'd come home report about all these people I'd
seen and how beautiful they were. And also there's something
(03:39):
about being elite, you know. I'm just going to say that,
as much as I don't like to say that about
being chosen and elite, you know, there's this ego. Part
of your sense of self recognizes that that you are
(04:01):
being selected and selected in our particular arena where it
is so super refined and quite close to the outside world.
We were christened, we were graced to be allowed in
the school and allowed to be in that studio, and
(04:21):
allowed to be in relationship to that organization, to the organization.
It's like when you first fall in love and you
feel like you're the person. Oh my god, it's me.
How can that not be? Throwing from my heart?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Podcasts and Rococo Punch, This is the turning Room of Mirrors.
I'm Erica Lance, Part three call. When Stephanie started at
(05:08):
the School of American Ballet, she was entering something big.
New York was in the middle of what came to
be known as the dance boom in the sixties and seventies.
New York was a hub for all kinds of dance.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I was going to two or three performances a week.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Dance historian Lynn Garifola remembers being at the start of
her career as a critic and writer in the seventies.
It seemed like everyone was talking about dance.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
There were performances everywhere, Tickets were still relatively cheap. There
were ballet companies coming from many different places. So I
think there was this sense of energy and possibility.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And at the center of this movement was Balancing. By then,
he'd been in the US for thirty years, He'd built
a ballet school and a ballet company. As far as
the dance world was concerned, he'd become the Shakespeare of
neoclassical ballet, and audience has got to watch him write
his masterpieces right in front of them.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Balancine and the New York City Ballet became really one
of the pre eminent artistic institutions. These were just one
of the preeminent cultural moments in New York City.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is historian Jim Steikin.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
He got people who aren't necessarily into ballet to care
about ballet. He made ballet something that was on TV
on a regular basis. He turned certain ballerinas into cultural
icons that girls wanted to emulate and inspire them to
study ballet.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
One thing I would like to say is that it's
pretty clear when you read all the reviews beginning in
the late sixties, nineteen seventies into the nineteen eighties, but
Balancin is portrayed as someone who could do no wrong,
even when he does really terrible ballet. The language is
kind of nice. I mean, who read some of those things.
(07:09):
It's like he could do no wrong. It's like he
was a god.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Balancine was ever present in the school. He could walk
into any class any day and wait to see what
would catch his eye.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
As the world around her worshiped Balancine. Stephanie Land was
still a teenager, hoping to join his company someday. One
day she was asked to be part of these performances
they called lecture demos, where students would go to public
schools to demonstrate ballet. First, they had to learn the choreography.
There were three couples dancing. Stephanie and her partner were
(07:48):
in the back behind the lead couple.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I wasn't very good at ballet in my mind, not yet.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
She remembers. That day. A talented dancer named Fernando Bojones
was there sitting on the steae radio floor at the front,
and then Balanjing walked in. She'd never met him before.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And I thought, well, nobody looks at the people in
the back. And I thought, well, he's not watching me.
Valentine's not watching me, so it really doesn't matter. I
can do whatever I want back here. And Fernando said, well,
he didn't take his eyes off of you.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
For one minute.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
You know, by the time he saw me, I don't
know how old he was. He had seen so many dancers,
he'd lived such a long life. If you spark his curiosity,
that's a good thing. He never wanted to be told
who to like, and very often, in fact, I think
he went the other way. So if the heads of
(08:46):
the schools, who were his Russian colleagues at the time,
would say we like this and this and this person,
likely he would turn his head and look for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Balancing wanted good dancers, but Stephanie says he was also
looking for someone unformed, someone's still.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Raw, somebody who doesn't quite have it all, and he
could shape them, He could form them. She doesn't quite
know what she's doing, but there's something and it was
very what you say, Chavian Pygmalion little bit, you know,
Eliza Doolittle. There's perhaps a sculpture in that marble. He
(09:23):
could make sixty mistakes and one was going to come
out of full sculpture. And that was basically how he
saw it. And he even would talk about, you know,
it could be a field of grass, but one flower.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Could Stephanie be that flower. Stephanie quickly learned how much
the school of American Ballet was about balancing and his choreography.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
People were trained to hone his particular sensibilities, even his ethics,
so that there would be a readiness definitely a readiness
in all of us to fall right into the company,
efficient and ready to be useful, immediately, ready to execute
(10:14):
and embody his visions.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Usually when you're a teenager, you don't meet the one
person who will make all of your career decisions. But
that's kind of what balancing was.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Balancing was basically the be all, end all answer to
the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
That's why, as a student, Stephanie Land learned there were
many expectations for dancers at the School of American Ballet,
(10:58):
some explicit, some so ingrained in the culture they didn't
have to be said aloud.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
There's a certain stringent criteria for body types and adhering
to those body types. There were criteria that were very
very clear and in no uncertain terms. What were the
criteria generally long limbed, tall, long neck, small heads, that
(11:24):
was understood, fair skin. I think I've even heard something
like when you slice an apple open, that kind of
the whiteness of the fruit. There was certainly exceptions, but
that was it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's well documented that Balancine had a preference for pale,
thin dancers, for dancers he loved. He'd praised them with
phrases like alabaster princess, or pale skin that reflected the light.
He had a lot of opinions about dancers bodies. Here
he is in a nineteen sixty three interview on WNYC
talking about how he evaluates female dances, specifically girls. He
(12:02):
starts by comparing the pros and cons of two girls' bodies.
One girl is tall, It's.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Very very tall, with beautiful legs and a fantastic extension.
One but doesn't turn as fast and has a beautiful expression,
marble face, you know, almost like angel you see.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Where another girl is short.
Speaker 6 (12:25):
The other one would be shorter, with shorter legs, dark face.
She can't jump very high and stretch her legs, but
she could be very faster, and maybe her ability to express.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
With a face, maybe she exceeds the first in terms
of artistic expression.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
I mean, they're all different animals.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Balance, She says, you can't say who is better.
Speaker 6 (12:52):
It's like to say what's better a leopard or jaguar,
or line or a pussycat or ada.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
He had animals and images for everyone. One dancer said
she was a porcupine, her friend a delicious mushroom. Whether
this was playful or dehumanizing. It's hard to tell, but
if you made the cut, it might have been because
of your idiosyncrasies, your individual style. It might be a
shimmer of something balancing could mold into a timeless sculpture.
Speaker 7 (13:34):
When Valentine choreographs, it's like it fits like a glove,
you know, It's like it's meant for you, and that's
so special. It's a glove that fits.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Deborah Austin entered the school as a shy thirteen year old.
She'd always depended on dance to draw her out of
her cocoon. Then she found herself vying for a position
with Valancine's company.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
They told parents that most likely I would never get
into the New York City Ballet because I would not
fit in.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
The message came from a teacher at the school that
she would not fit in because of the color of
her skin, because she's black. They said she could never
dance in the court of ballet, the group of dancers
you often see dancing behind the soloists, because she wouldn't match.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
You know, I would have to be a soloist if
that was possible, And I'm looking at them at thirteen
years old, thinking, I know I have talent, but not
a soloist.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
You've got to beginning me.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Jumping from student to soloists seemed impossible, but Deborah wanted
to dance for me.
Speaker 7 (14:41):
It was like there was not going to be a no.
I mean, I was going to achieve this on my
own merit, no matter what color I was, no matter
what I did. You had to sparkle something for him
to be interested in you. I mean, just being there
was not exactly ideal. You had to really show your worth.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Balancing had been watching her, and she did get in.
At age sixteen, she was the first black female dancer
admitted into the company. She danced in the Core in
Swan Lake, a role she'd been told she could never dance,
and she danced soloist roles, one that Balanging specifically choreographed
for her.
Speaker 7 (15:28):
He was so kind, just the way he took your
hand and said, come here, dear. You know yet you
were still scared of him, or at least I was.
He could be tough, but he was a father figure,
you know, to some of us, and we were his disciples.
(15:51):
I think he cared more about individuality than he cared
about a look. I think he cared about how you
were as an artist. I really don't believe that.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
There was a specific type that he wanted.
Speaker 7 (16:09):
I mean, supposedly he wanted the skin tone to be
the color of a fresh peeled apple. My skin color
was not the color of a freshly peeled apple by
no stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So there you have it.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Still, the reality was that Balancine's company was almost entirely white.
For the nine years Debor dance at the New York
City Ballet, she was the only black female dancer there.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I might have paid something.
Speaker 7 (16:41):
I literally made a driveway, but.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I was there for nine years by myself.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
It might have hindered me, you know, in some ways
because of what I was told when I was younger.
I feel like it wanted to fit in, keep down inside.
Possibly I went back into my cocoon and myself for
many years in the company.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Debra believes that Balanging didn't have one type in mind,
that he was open to many kinds of dancers, and
this is one of those areas where Balancine seems to
hold opposites at the same time. Did he want dancers
to conform to his aesthetics or did he value variety?
What was clear was that being thin was important.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
I mean, I just wanted to be thinner because I
knew being thinner was going to get me parts and
he was going to like me more. And you want
it so badly, you know, you please him. Then he
used to call us all briotious because we were all
like young and our bodies changed from being these skinny
little things to like becoming women. But he wanted us
(17:54):
thinner than we probably were being cubes and young girls.
Now looked pictures of myself when I was younger in
those photographs and I go, oh my god, they called
me fat, Like how is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We were definitely indoctrinated with a certain esthetic that was
known as the Balanchine body.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Stephanie and Deborah overlapped at the company in one piece.
They danced back to back solos while Debora spins off
stage in a joyful mix of PK turns and jumps. Stephanie,
almost mirroring Deborah, twirls on stage all length and speed.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
The preference for very long legs for thin I did
not match that. In all moments. I was a little
more round than the preferred body. There were times when
I was taken out of ballet's because of my weight,
and this was before it was politically incorrect to address it,
(19:02):
so basically I'd just be called fat and pulled out.
So I had those phases in those conflicts and self
deprecation certainly, and went through them.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Some see balancing as the person most responsible for changing
the expectation of ballerina's bodies not just to be slim,
but to be absolutely as thin as possible.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
If you look at photos of the late nineteenth century ballerinas,
they're very, very different from the ballerinas of the nineteen
twenties or the nineteen forties. In the nineteen fifties, slender
dancers all had little shapes, they had waists. No one
in New York City ballet in the late nineteen sixties
or nineteen seventies or early eighties had a waste. They
(19:51):
were much more straight, and that was what Maalanging apparently wanted.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Historian Len Gariff points out it's hard to pin the
extreme body standards all on balancing.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
In the nineteen sixties and seventies, extreme thinness became apparent
across the fashion industry. If one picks up fashion magazines
from the mid nineteen sixties on and you see Twiggy.
You know this is a moment when the beauty industry
is saying that thinness is really what is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Either way, Balanchine's dancer is worthier than their predecessors, and
Balancing pressure dancers to lose weight. One time, he told
a dancer named Heidi Vossler she was too fat to
dance the ballet serenad just moments before she had to
go on stage and perform it. She was so upset
(20:48):
she could barely get through the steps. Another former dancer,
Suzanne Farrell, received a letter from Balancing and included a
personal poem and a ps that read, quote, I hope
by now you are thin and beautiful and light to lift.
Suzanne later said she felt frightened and hurt. She wrote quote,
(21:10):
I should have known it. I shouldn't have had to
be told. I felt stupid and inadequate, and I was
so upset that I proceeded to try to lose weight
right there. Thus my life was now hinging on two
big problems, getting my entrance right and losing weight. Suzanne
would eventually become Balanchine's most famous dancer. His muse he
(21:32):
was in love with her and her dancing. Soon, younger
dancers were trying to mold themselves after her. Gelsie Kirkland
was one of them. She famously wrote about it in
her memoir. Balanchine teased Gelsey for having a big head.
Everyone wanted a small head like Suzanne. Gelsey was desperate
to look just like her, Balanchine's favorite ballerina. She wrote, quote,
(21:58):
he had such an obsession with her face that everybody,
all of my friends, were trying to imitate the shape
of her mouth. I went to the dentist and said
that I want buck teeth, and Gelsie knew she had
to be thin, she says. Balanchine wrapped his knuckles on
her sternum and said, must see bones. He did not
merely say eat less, she says, he repeatedly said eat nothing.
(22:23):
I think I tried harder to please balancing than anybody.
The physical cost was that it killed you to do it.
An interviewer asked her once if Balanchine cared about her body.
She said he cared how it looked, not how it felt.
When she was too sick to dance, she writes, Balanchin
(22:43):
gave her pills. He told her they were vitamins, but
later she realized they were amphetamines. Eventually, Gelsey would depend
on drugs to get through her performances, and when Balanchine
thought that her head was too big for her body,
something she says he pointed out to her all the time,
I'm she got silicone injections and had her ear lopes trimmed.
(23:05):
Kelsey said, I starved by day, then binged on junk
food and threw up by night. I took injections of
pregnant cow's urine, reputed to be a miraculous diet aid.
I emptied myself with enemas and steam baths, anything to
mold the body her boss wanted. You might think, based
(23:29):
on these clearly desperate measures, that Gelsey was unappreciated, but
actually no, she was a legend, one of Balanchine's favorites,
frequently cast in lead roles. But these were the kinds
of measures she felt she had to take. Plenty of
dancers resorted to plastic surgery or other extreme measures to
stay slim. The pressure was real, and they knew what
(23:51):
was required of them.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
You eat, sleep, and drink ballet. It is first, It's
before everything damn precedes everything, you give your all.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
After Balanjing noticed Stephanie, he visited her class frequently, often
his eyes were on her. She couldn't understand why.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I really was behind and I really was not capable
of delivering the goods consistently. But when I was allowed
to do whatever I wanted to do in my own
particular way, that worked. And then he started coming around,
and then the teachers would say, you know, go to
the front of the room, and I didn't want to
go to the front of the room, and I would
(24:33):
have practical panic attacks when he would come in, and
I'd hide and balancing would start, even coming into the
back of the studio if I wouldn't go forward, whatever
he saw, I can't say. What I do know is
that I haven't over the topness. I've been told I
(24:59):
don't do things in little ways. So I think what
he saw was this person that if let loose, was
going to run.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Stephanie was willing to go there. When she danced, she
didn't hold back. Valancine had this thing he said to
his dancers all the time. People quoted again and again
in the middle of rehearsal or the middle of class.
(25:29):
If a dancer seemed not to be giving absolutely everything.
He looked at them and say.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
What are you saving for, dear? Or are you gonna lose?
You're gonna fall down. The floor's really close by, and
so you fall down, you get up. We were trained
for that risk all, basically risk all, And then I
got in and I didn't know which way was up.
(26:12):
I definitely loved drama. I loved heightened experiences, extremities, zigzagging.
I don't know that I loved it so much as
I was drawn by it to it and embodied that
as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Stephanie got into the company when she was eighteen. It
meant a life of extremes.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
It was glamorous, and then we did a tour and
then suddenly I was in and I was really in.
It was really like quicksand.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
Being in meant Stephanie had an intense schedule as a
company member. You'd have morning class at ten am, rehearsals
all day, get ready for a performance, perform in the evening,
and finally leave the theater at maybe eleven at night.
On top of that, you never know your exact schedule
until the evening before when it would be posted, so
you can't make plans for your life outside the company
(27:09):
to be near the studio. All the dancers lived in
the same area, a stretch of blocks on the Upper
West Side that dancers called the Ballet Belt.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Because there is very little control of one's life in
a company that size in terms of casting scheduling, there
is a feeling of lack of control and a lack
of ability to make choices for oneself. Decisions about you
(27:40):
are being made for you, and so what happened was
I would lash out by going dancing, go at clubbing,
sleep with someone and staying up all night. That could
be self harming in certain ways, but it was a
(28:00):
way to work out that energy of frustration that I
was not getting to choose. I think that's a normal
adolescent behavior, to tell you the truth. But my escapes
were really physical venting, really really physical venting. That was
a coping mechanism for me.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It could feel like you lived or died by what
Balanchine thought of you. A dancer named Barbara Walzac wrote
about it. She says, I remember talking to him once
when I must have been about sixteen. He said, you know, dear,
I know you someday want to dance Swan Lake. But
you know, if you ever do Swan Lake, I will
never come to see you, because you will be terrible.
(28:51):
Barbara writes, I was absolutely destroyed. Still, Barbara felt she
had to dance for balancing and not another ballet company.
Balancine looked through you when he watched you dance. She said,
he saw things no one else saw. And she says
the feel of having him set the steps on you,
of the music, of the counts, of the kind of
(29:13):
kinesetic movement and quality was addictive that dancer. Barbara danced
with him for fourteen years. When she was eventually let go,
she says it was so wrenching she had a nervous breakdown.
The reality was that even if you gave everything, you
(29:34):
could be fired without warning and without explanation. You might
hear it directly from someone other than Balanchine that he
decided it was time for you to leave. You might
just get a pink slip in the mail.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I could be in the wings or the studio and
feel like phenomenally insecure. I would go home and cry
and just feel that I couldn't possibly ever measure up.
But the minute I was on stage it felt like another.
I'm entirely I just felt very connected, very alive. I
loved being on stage that I love to dance.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
She loved feeling that she was doing something deeper, something important,
And that was a feeling you had in the company.
It was more than a job. You were buying into
a philosophy, a way of life. There was a sense
you were part of something sacred, like Balanchine was channeling
something higher and turning it into steps in front of
your eyes.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That's what it felt like, very frequently with Balanchine in
the room. It really was. He was just like a
funnel or a vessel, and.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Like divine inspiration.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Absolutely absolutely, and for the observer, looking effortless and very graceful.
I just really feel at that I was a witness too,
and a participant in some thing quite unusual and rare
(31:05):
in the world.
Speaker 8 (31:08):
Could you tell me about Balancing's philosophy, Hm, just dance, dear,
don't think what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I think it means a myriad of things. If I
were being narrow or defensive, it would be just so
that he could get everything precisely as he wanted it,
and he didn't want the mind or the personal vantage
point of a dancer to interfere with what he was
looking for. And yet I also see it as very zam.
(31:44):
Don't clutter, don't get in your own way. Just dance, dear,
just dance here.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Balancing wanted his dancers to be in the moment completely,
to live like the present was all. They had to
believe that this moment was of utmost importance, and in
that way dance at the highest level. Balanging was known
for choreographing incredibly speedy movement in his ballets. It was
something the dancers had to train for and he drilled
them on it incessantly. They had to learn to move
(32:19):
faster than they ever had before.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
We had to get it into our bones, into our
nervous system, because it's not a brain process. It's really
like a trigger finger. He likened it very often to
a horse when the gun goes off at a race.
You have to be out of the gate when it starts,
(32:42):
not thinking about going out of the gate, and you
have to be ready. We would have classes with pot
of beret for a half hour. Oh my gosh, practicing direction, speed,
weight transfer, being super super quick, and you get the
thighs to get together faster. The back leg is almost
the front leg before the front leg even gets a
(33:02):
chance to start transferring weight. We could have sixty four
tondus the speed of light front side end back and
one empty emptree and four and then you could go
and just go, and you'd have to do it. And
if you're not doing it, somebody is. That's the other
(33:22):
thing about the company. If you're not doing it, if
somebody replace you.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Stephanie learned that Balancine might ask you to do just
about anything in class, even things that seemed impossible. So,
for example, let's say you're jumping. You're doing these little
jumps in place, straight up into the air, switching your
feet from front to back and back to front. That's
called a changem. Then you start jumping higher and you
(33:53):
start beating your feet together while you're in the air.
That's an unto shakat. Then you add more beats, and
at chassis all of us is normal. Usually you'd start
these jumps by bending your knees a little what's called
a plier, a small knee bend.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Usually you have a small, little one, and you practice
your little beats and you land. But he's famous for
giving what we call a grand plier and to entre chassis,
and that's a big knee bend. Okay, what we call
fifth position.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Instead of bending your knees a little, you crouch next
to the floor. In fifth position in a grand plier,
your legs are flattened to the sides and you're balancing
on the balls of your feet. And from that almost torturous,
thigh burning position, you're supposed to jump all the way
up into the.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Air to three beats.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Beating your feet together while you're in the air and landing.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
He would do it out of these extreme positions just
to see even if you had the volition to do it.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
It was also a test of are you a patriot?
Are you a citizen? Are you willing to do these
unheard of things? Are you willing to do whatever I
ask you to do? Set yourself beyond the margins of
(35:15):
safety and it might actually be possible.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Sometimes, when I'm explaining to people that were not exposed
to this in that particular culture, I laugh at my
former self because not only would you want to demonstrate
something when he asked for it, you would show that
you were excited about showing that you were showing you're
(35:44):
showing your fervor. Kind of exactly, you were demonstrating your fervor.
It was a layer on layer un layer of energy, fervor, volition.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, it's like you have to demonstrate your passion for
the art and your reverence for it.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Just being there is not enough. You have to really
amplify it to let it be known in the visible world.
He would request things that could be almost undoable, and
most of it was really challenging our willingness to risk.
(36:23):
It was really about risk and passing through any kind
of imagined limitations or real limitations, doing the impossible.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
The dancers learned it was music first, choreography second, you third,
the dancers were in service to the music and to ballet.
To many in the audience, it was balanging who was
the star.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
He stood in the wings every single performance. He was
always in the front wing, watching and waiting to be
either surprised, entertained, intrigued or otherwise I suppose. But he
was always in the wings. So we were always not
only literally on our toes, but we were always aware
(37:23):
of his part in our lives and his part in
your lives being what exactly ever present? Yeah, ever observing
ever present, and also realizing that we were we were
taking part in something that was his creation, that was
(37:47):
run by his esthetic, and that the criteria was to
be met to the absolute best of our ability. In
all moments, He was God in the theater. And in fact,
(38:07):
I don't know if I told you that when the
theater apparently was built, you know, we only had windows
and very little slipper windows on the fourth floor. In
the offices. There are no windows otherwise because basically we
don't need windows because the outside world doesn't matter. We
are not part of the outside world. Wow, it's separate
(38:32):
from us, and we are removed from it. And once
you go downstairs into the theater, enter through the stage entrance,
and go into the studios, the dressing rooms in the stage,
there is no need for the outside world because we
are removed from it and apart from it, and in
our own unique sphere, we had our own universe.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
The Turning is the production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
It's written and produced by Alan Lance Lesser and Me.
Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed
by James Trout. Jessica Krisa is our Assistant producer. Andrea
Assuage is our digital producer, fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado.
(39:53):
Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Alpert at
Rococo Punch and Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etour at I
Hard Podcasts. For photos and more details on the series,
follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can
(40:14):
reach out via email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com.
I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.
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