* * *
TIME WAS WHAT we needed most. We had only two weeks to rehearse for my Giselle with Natasha and to get me ready for judging eyes: company members, other coaches, Sergei, the audience. Sasha knew their curiosity would be intense, which is why our time in the studio was so protected, valuable, and imperative. He wanted no one watching and at times would even ask other dancers warming up for the next rehearsal to leave the studio.
Sasha would tinker with and analyze everything I did: for the smallest run to a corner he noted how my hips should be placed; how I should slow down at the end of the run. To my benefit, he was the same height as me. There is a different approach to movement and execution with such height, and Sasha could relate to that and translate it. I learned from him what an advantage height could be if I knew how to utilize it properly. When not rehearsing, he expected me to fully rest my body for the following day. Because when we stepped into the studio to work, he wanted me fully recharged, ready to deliver everything I could give him.
In the course of all this, I was still a stranger in a strange town. Other than Ivan and Natasha, I knew no one. I had no friends. No social life. Nowhere to go after rehearsals had finished for the day. I had no distractions veering me away from the work. At home in the evenings, I thought about that day’s rehearsal. Sasha’s guidance trickled from my head to my body, away from the literal thought of a movement and eventually into muscle memory when it “gets into the body.”
A one-hour rehearsal was at full throttle from beginning to end. There were days when I would start a variation and go through it in its entirety, finishing in fatigue, pacing around the studio puffing for air. Personally thinking it hadn’t been that bad, I would look at Sasha for feedback. Often it didn’t meet his standards. His discerning eyes saw things I could not.
As with Yuri, Sasha would spend an hour with me on forty-five seconds of material. He would endlessly harp on my turnout, the rotating outward of the legs from the hips, which is essential to the aesthetic line of classical ballet (and consequently gives ballet dancers their “duck walk”). Sasha made clear that I had been dancing many things turned in. Because of the extreme rotation of my feet, the turnout came from below and not higher up, from the hips. He would demonstrate how it looked if his hips were open when walking, preparing, jumping, running. Then he would show me what he saw when I danced. Legs turned in. Creating a feeble, powerless walk or a brittle, small preparation for a jump. When his hips were rotated out, I could see how he added power and weight to his movements. A run looked earthbound and strong. A walk looked masculine and dense. An audience member can marvel at the height of a jump or the power of a run, but generally doesn’t realize that it all stems from the strength of a dancer’s turnout, a largely unknown detail that affects virtually every step. Once my turnout was corrected, over and over again, I felt physically more agile and in control, which, in turn, made for a visual difference for Sasha and the audience.
* * *
NOTHING WAS SPARED a thorough dissection, which made every movement seem far more complex than it had ever seemed before, leaving me to feel I couldn’t execute it anymore. Sasha broke me down to build me back up. It terrified me when simple steps that I had executed for years completely fell apart. How could a step so basic to the classical technique, like a run or a glissade, be so difficult and intricate? I would stand in disbelief in the center of the enormous Bolshoi studio, Sasha in the front facing me. I would look at him wide-eyed, panic-stricken. These were the most fundamental steps in the ballet vocabulary and there they were, unraveling at the seams. Was everything beforehand an illusion? How had I convinced myself I was giving enough previously? But still, this was my utopia: working this hard and assessing this much.
The more we pushed through the difficult moments, the better the outcome was. I could feel the hours of molding, forming, questioning paying dividends. He wanted more. He knew there was more in me. His eye guided me forward. I felt like a foal taking its first steps. But a foal who previously had a ten-year ballet career. I was adding more to my technique. I relearned habits. I felt my focus change. At times, I attained the standard that Sasha expected of me. I shed layers of dried, uninspired skin to feel a raw, focused layer underneath.
As some new approaches felt like they had started to click, Sasha would say that, in fact, they weren’t where they needed to be. So I worked harder. That drive I had lost back in New York was regained. The nourishment from Sasha, his eye for tiny detail and his honest feedback, pushed me beyond my preconceived limitations. And as consistent routine bore the fruits of that labor, I could see my dancing becoming broader, bigger, more open. It had more force. A moment of preparation into a jump was used with ultimate efficiency. I felt my entire six-foot-three frame of a body used in all its height and length. Even the way I walked on the stage was different. I had weight. Purpose. I felt like a dancer equally earthbound and airy. I could find that shading between the two more easily, offering weight when I needed it but providing the lightness of jump and presence in other moments. I began to feel a rebirth under Sasha’s honest watch, there in the intimacy of the studio with no one but myself, my coach, and the pianist. Every hour spent in the studio was bringing us closer to our final objective—my first performance in Moscow as a Bolshoi Premier.
CHAPTER 26
My Bolshoi debut was Giselle, partnering Natalia Osipova. The opportunity to dance again with her, in her home theater, was one of the biggest personal bonuses of coming to Bolshoi. I immediately immersed myself in the flow of my Giselle rehearsals. First, I had a solo call for an hour, when I would work meticulously on one jump and step after another. Then, time with Natasha, running the ballet from beginning to end, for an hour and a half. I was in heaven.
Sasha and I deconstructed Albrecht, the male lead. Most of Albrecht’s dancing is reserved for Act II, so Act I builds his character and allows for just a few moments of expression through actual dancing. Those moments were regarded with the same importance as a major variation in the second act. Sasha explained them anew. In the climax of Giselle and Albrecht’s initial flirtation there is a small moment when he playfully chases her around the stage in a series of jetés. Sasha had infinite ways of telling me how to approach this circle, a mere twelve counts that I, beforehand, didn’t realize deserved such attention.
I was finding a way back into the classical repertoire. For years, I had wanted a way to make Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake something personal, something that felt true to myself and not dictated by generations of expectation. I had begun to do that with Yuri and, as I rehearsed Giselle with Sasha, I realized more clearly than ever that the opportunity to do so had always been there. Because it had to come from inside. My task was to find the drive and the individuality in the work, critical intangibles that Sasha fostered but could not supply. His responsibility had to begin and end with giving me the information and enabling me to make of it whatever I could. It was empowering to recognize that, ultimately, I was the one holding the reins.
* * *
WHEN IT CAME time to perform Giselle, the work Sasha and I accomplished in the studio had to transfer to the stage.The comfort and growth I felt in the studio would have to amount to something in public. The expectation and pressure to prove myself were enormous. I could feel it all around me: from Sergei, Sasha, the other coaches, the dancers, the media. I was scared of that first show, when everyone would judge and scrutinize.
I was lucky that Natasha would be my partner. I knew that she would calm my nerves just by dancing next to me. Still, I kept asking myself, Will I be able to live up to expectations?
* * *
NATASHA AND I would be dancing on what is known as the New Stage, a secondary stage that was used throughout the six-year renovation of Bolshoi Theatre. Twenty minutes before the curtain went up, Liusia, the main stylist for the male dancers of Bolshoi, put the final touches on my hair and makeup. A friendly woman, quick to laugh and try her English out on me, she chatted with me
while she worked. Nervous, I just nodded and smiled, mentally miles away. I escaped into my dressing room, alone. I sat down in my chair, the bright bulbs on the mirror warming the room. I looked at my reflection, hair blown back and sprayed, eyes lined with dark shading. I knew what task was approaching, and before I put on my costume (the point of no return) I tried to find confidence in the eyes looking back at me in the mirror. I convinced myself that I could rise to this occasion.
Outside those dressing room doors, everyone waited to watch, judge, critique, decipher. My worthiness. My talent. I reached for my costume, pulled on my cream-colored tights, and made my way to the stage.
* * *
NATASHA WAS THERE before me (it’s where she does most of her preshow preparation). I pranced about, warming up like a runner before a sprint, feeling calmer now than I had in my dressing room. The curtain down, I tested out certain steps, listening to the low hum of the house as the audience entered. These familiar rituals—the buzz of the audience, the notes of the musicians warming up—gave a reassuring feeling that this was just like other shows.
Just another Giselle, I told myself.
I loved those “normal” shows, the ones where no one you know personally is watching: minimal pressure, the energy around you calm. They always loosened me up, allowed me to take more risks, to feel free. But I knew, as much as I might tell myself it was just like previous Giselles, that tonight was really altogether different. It wasn’t the show to relax and take risks because no one I knew was watching. In fact, it was those whom I didn’t know who mattered most. Moscow audiences and I would be acquainting ourselves with each other. They had yet to form an opinion of the American who’d joined the Bolshoi Ballet. First impressions are the most lasting.
* * *
AT MY FIRST entrance, as Albrecht enters Giselle’s village, I listened for their reaction. I did worry that I was going to be booed. Booed for being an outsider. Booed for being American. Instead, I was courteously welcomed. But the applause was simply polite, as if they were saying, “Okay, we acknowledge you as a member of the company, but we’ll hold off on any major enthusiasm until we see you dance well.”
Though performers can rarely see the people in the audience, more importantly, we always feel them. They could be sitting quietly, watching the action onstage, and we still sense their energy, their collective mood. In intimate moments like Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene, the most subtle movement—Romeo’s touch of Juliet’s finger—can cause everyone in the house to hold their breath. This you can also sense. Applause is different. There is the roar when a dancer shows the audience a blazing technical feat. The long thunderous applause when they are deeply appreciative. The thin polite clapping suggesting indifference.
* * *
FROM THE MOMENT Natasha and I were onstage together we were connected. She was with me, and I was with her. No one else could have gotten me through the pressure. Looking at her comforted me. Dancing with her propelled me. Our energy was a drug, regardless of what stage we were dancing on. I loved feeding off her. Playing with her. Embracing her.
Without her, I had moments of panic. Warming up for Act II, with the majority of Albrecht’s dancing yet to come, I lost the coordination of my pirouettes. When something goes, the feeling lost, it can head south immediately. Years of drilling pirouettes can’t save it. I repeated a turn over and over, to no avail. Certain elements were against me; I was still adjusting to the rake of the stage and a canvas floor (slippery), not the usual Marley (a stickier surface, easier to grip). Natasha had slipped on the canvas in rehearsal and fallen badly. Executing a pirouette on it feels like turning on ice. Warming up, I couldn’t pull out three pirouettes.
Sergei was on the side of the stage and witnessed my gradual decline. Quietly, he came up to me and, in his colorful English, told me to just focus on the motion of the turn; not to pull out multiple pirouettes but to just execute three clean single turns all in one calm execution. That was enough. He refocused my energy and I relaxed. Sometimes I ask myself what the main point is. What am I focusing my energy on? What is most important? Surely not the number of pirouettes I execute. The motion of the turn is what matters. And Sergei brought me back to the honesty of movement.
Intermittently throughout the show, I would think about the magnitude of what I was doing. About the likelihood that everyone watching was deciding whether it had been a smart move to bring me into the company. Those thoughts led to instant panic, so I did what I could to assuage them, telling myself to just allow the performance to happen. Don’t force the steps. Or the acting. Trust the work you have put in. Allow yourself to have the performance you desire.
I zoned in on my natural rapport with Natasha in order to remain focused amid the circus around me. The activity in the wings was as it had been when I first came to Bolshoi: a bevy of dancers, their friends and children, as well as the theater’s babushkas and dressers, all of them so close to the stage that they were almost on it. There were intimate moments in Act II that I worried about: kneeling by Giselle’s grave, remorseful and guilt-stricken by her death. Her grave was set just off the wings, and as I carried a huge bouquet of lilies to lay by her cross, it would be hard not to notice the peering eyes of wing watchers two feet from me.
I couldn’t blame them. Better a sense of curiosity than not caring at all. Ultimately, I had to ignore everything around me, and try to give the most authentic performance possible.
* * *
AFTER THE FINAL curtain we took our bows in the Bolshoi style; something I had yet to learn. There is a specific way in Russia of acknowledging the audience, unique to a culture that respects ballet so much. Slow, studied, in the moment; soaking in the appreciation of the audience by deliberately measured gestures. There are flowers—for most ballerinas, bouquets and bouquets of them. An abundance of flowers were brought out to Natasha by the Bolshoi ushers in their maroon jackets and skirts, doing their best to wrangle heaps of bouquets onto the stage. Then the curtain was closed, full stage bows finished. The Corps de Ballet trailed offstage back to their dressing rooms, idly taking the bobby pins out of their hair.
As the center curtain parted, Natasha and I made our way out, hand in hand, to the front of the curtain. With the house lights up, the audience was in full view. It is uniquely Bolshoi to have the house lights on as the dancers connect with the audience from the first row of the orchestra to the top of the balconies. (At most theaters the house is still dark, making it hard to see the audience.) They rose from their seats, facing the stage, chanting a long “Bra-vo,” making it a metered two-syllable word. The bows in front of the curtain continued . . . six, seven, eight more. Behind the curtain, we spoke to guests standing onstage; I spoke to Sasha, who gave me immediate corrections. I’ve always loved notes directly after the show when it is fresh in my mind. We then continued the bows, coming out until the theater held only small groups who wouldn’t go home until they had shown their appreciation a final time.
“Last one?” we said to each other as we walked out to say good night to the handful of audience members still applauding.
I owed that night to Natasha. I felt as I always felt with her: as if the audience wasn’t even watching. When I was alone onstage in a variation I was ever aware of them. But when I danced with her it was intimate; we were in our own private world. Performing with her told me for an absolute certainty that coming to the Bolshoi was the right decision. When we danced together, I was home.
CHAPTER 27
Three days after my debut with the company, I was being interviewed by a Russian journalist who asked, “How do you feel about Osipova and Vasiliev leaving the Bolshoi?”
She was speaking in broken English, so at first I thought something had gotten lost in translation. I didn’t think she meant an actual departure from the company.
But she did.
Natasha had given me no previous warning. I didn’t even know it was being discussed. Although we didn’t have an ongoing social relations
hip outside the studio and stage, it stung to hear—especially from a random journalist—that we wouldn’t be able to work more together.
Natasha and I never discussed her departure. There was nothing really to say. I wasn’t angry. I would have loved for her to stick around and dance with me, but, as I said at the time, I accepted that she had to do what she had to do. She had to be artistically fulfilled, and if she thought a different company would offer her that opportunity in a way the Bolshoi could not, then she should go for it. It wasn’t up to me to ask her to stay solely for my selfish reasons; obviously that wasn’t reason enough.
Still, Bolshoi lost two of its greatest stars. Natasha and Ivan were the fresh faces of the new generation of Bolshoi dancers, and had been nurtured and groomed in the company. They were a sensation throughout the dance world, having created an enormous success in their performances with Bolshoi of Don Quixote in London. Seven months earlier, when I had gone to see the Bolshoi’s Flames of Paris and been struck by how invigorated the company looked, Ivan and Natasha, dancing the leads, had been brilliant, incandescent stars. Through their raw, urgent belief in their portrayals, I saw the necessity of our art. They were Bolshoi. And Bolshoi was in them. But artists must stay true to what they believe will best enhance them.
* * *
REGARDLESS OF MY feelings about losing Natasha as a partner, I had to focus on Beauty for the reopening of the Historical Stage. The performance would require every ounce of my mental and physical energy. With both of our Giselles behind us, I was at last in the studio with Svetlana. I was immediately struck by her personal warmth. We fit well together, easing into the partnering quickly and efficiently. There was a softness to her when we were together; I sensed she was relaxed and comfortable with me. I also felt she enjoyed my foreignness, and appreciated the risk inherent in coming to Moscow and Bolshoi. And it comforted me to know she liked practicing her English on me.
A Body of Work Page 19