I prepared very carefully for my ballet classes. I was now a full-time student of the School of American Ballet, which meant I was now officially a student of Balanchine technique. His style was called neoclassical: turning away from the heavy costuming and dramatic story lines of classical ballet, he instead choreographed ballets that were sleek and modern, with simple costumes and no story. His choreography focused on the dance itself and used classical ballet steps but often added a twist—a flexed foot here, a more extreme, off-balance pose there. Though he had died in 1983 and his choreographic works in America began in 1934 with Serenade, the ballet that stole my heart, his work looks more modern and innovative today than some ballets that were choreographed just yesterday.
At SAB, I was being trained to be a modern neoclassical ballet dancer: a Balanchine dancer. We learned not only to dance rapidly with precision but also to dance any step from any position at any time with hardly any preparatory movements. Even a moment of stillness couldn’t be just a pretty, static pose; we needed to look and feel ready to move at all times, and there were supposed to be invisible lines of energy radiating from our extremities. Balanchine’s technique is very difficult to master and was extremely challenging for me. But I felt energized and stimulated by the classes at SAB, and though every day I failed at many of the steps I was being taught, it seemed as if I were learning to really dance for the first time.
My main teachers that first year were Suki Schorer, Antonia Tumkovsky—“Tumey,” as we all called her—and Susan Pilarre. Susan was an expert on Balanchine technique and style who focused on musical precision and dynamics blended with confidence and strength. Tumey’s classes were exercises in endurance and stamina; her loving spirit would somehow shine through her tough Russian standards, and even when she made us jump until I thought I would pass out, I still adored her. Suki, whose class seemed to me to be the perfect interpretation of what Balanchine would have taught himself, tried to hone and refine us, searching for elegance and femininity on top of a strong base of musicality and technique.
After surviving our morning class, we would go to the Juilliard cafeteria to get some lunch. I would have yogurt and fruit and a half bagel, chat with some of the girls, and sometimes do some last-minute homework. But we didn’t have much time. Soon it was time for us to grab our bags and troop back over to PCS for an afternoon school class and perhaps a quick “correspondence lesson” with one of our teachers.
Once that was done, school was over for the day. It was time for us to go back over to SAB for our second ballet class of the day. These classes, usually from two or two thirty and lasting an hour to an hour and a half, were pointe or pas de deux classes, variations classes where we worked on real solos from various classical or Balanchine ballets, or sometimes even ballroom classes, where we added another layer of elegance to our partnering skills.
We had so much to learn, and SAB wanted us to be thoroughly schooled in everything they thought a Balanchine dancer would need. In our technique classes we learned the basics, the ABCs of ballet, sometimes simplifying steps to the extreme and repeating them over days and weeks. In our pointe classes, we fine-tuned our work en pointe, emphasizing steps that would enhance our strength and precision. Variations class taught us how to sustain a ballet “paragraph”; most combinations in a technique class are short, only seconds long, like sentences for the body. In a variation, or solo, a dancer must have the strength and stamina to dance excellently for a minute or more, transitioning from one “sentence” to the next, and this takes practice. Both the pas de deux and ballroom classes focused on our ability to work with and trust a male partner and were in many ways the highlight of my week.
Once again, Suki and Susan were our main teachers for pointe and variations, Andre Kramerevsky taught us pas de deux, and once a week we had variations with Madame Danilova, a famous old Russian prima ballerina who was one of the stars of her generation. Though she had left Russia with Balanchine and been involved in his early European companies, Danilova rounded out SAB’s curriculum by teaching the students very classically. Her classes were something special during the week.
Danilova was a treasure. She seemed to step out of an old daguerreotype when she emerged from her dressing room. Perfume wafted around her, and her hair was always perfectly set. She wore a leotard and a sheer chiffon skirt with a colorful scarf around her waist. Dainty ballet slippers with heels graced her feet, and her matching earrings and necklace twinkled in the studio lights.
Her classes were of an older style of ballet, slower and more poetic than the classes of the other teachers. She encouraged us to find subtle nuances in our dancing and to use contained and understated port de bras—the way we carried our arms—to make beautiful pictures with our bodies. In her classes we learned to dance in a way that would invite an audience into our world to see the luminescent shapes and phrasing we were creating onstage. She didn’t want us to bash the audience on the head with our audacious technical daring. The good technique should be there—just underneath a layer of artistry. The variations she taught us were from the classic full-length ballets; that first year we worked on the fairy variations from the prologue to The Sleeping Beauty. She was quiet, ladylike, and frail with age, and throughout my adult career I often wished that my fifteen-year-old self had taken more time to soak up her style while I could. Even just an hour and a half with her taught me how to dance and behave like a lady, with poise and dignity.
Most days, this second afternoon class was the last of the day, and I would return to my family’s apartment to do homework. By this time I was walking on the sidewalks by myself; I would have been horrified to still be picked up by my parents. Most of the other students, even though they were just teenagers, came from out of town and lived in their own apartments with roommates. I was already an oddity to be living at home with my parents, and I was at the age where I was trying to get as much independence as possible. Looking back now, however, I’m glad that I wasn’t as independent as the other students. Fifteen was too young for me to be entirely on my own, dealing with the various pressures facing teenagers, in New York City.
On Fridays a special third class was added to our day. A five thirty–to–seven pointe class with the wonderful Stanley Williams, it was one of my favorite classes. I would hang out in the Juilliard lounge or in one of the hallways at SAB wearing warm-up clothes and doing homework or having a snack with the other students. Then we would go up to the studio early and stretch or just mess around and be silly the way only ballet dancers can be, asking each other, “Can you do this crazy thing on pointe?”
Then Stanley would come into the studio wearing his trousers and button-down shirt, smoking his pipe, and chuckling at all of us. Utter silence would descend as we prepared our brains to decipher his mysterious monosyllable of the moment. Some weeks the only word he would say was “in.” Other weeks it was “toe.” He asked for very simple steps and preferred uncomplicated music, mostly just chords. The other students and I would attempt his combinations, trying to figure out what he meant by “in” when he was correcting the way one rose onto pointe.
Every now and then a student would earn a nod from him, which was highest praise. Whenever I got a nod, I would think wildly to try to figure out what it was exactly I had done right so that I could do it again. I never really knew. But somehow I danced differently in his class; the mixture of his particular combinations, with the minimal music, silent studio, and simple words, would cause me to glide and float silently on pointe. I had greater mental focus on where I was putting my weight as I moved through the combinations of steps, and much more control over my body’s balance. I couldn’t reproduce this feeling in anyone else’s class.
After the Friday-night class, my parents and I, and sometimes my sister, had a new tradition where I would meet them in the lobby of the Juilliard building and we would go for a slice of pizza and then an ice-cream sundae at Diane’s, a burger-and-ice-cream pa
rlor on Seventy-second Street. I could eat whatever I wanted because I had a teenage metabolism and was dancing a rigorous three hours a day. I was not worried about my weight and really had no awareness of anyone my age being worried about her body. If any of my friends had weight concerns, we never spoke of it. After our meal, my family would walk home, passing shops that were fully lit and open for business despite the lateness of the hour and marveling that we were now living our regular life in New York City.
The fall and winter leading up to Christmas was a blur of adjustments for me. School wasn’t overly difficult, but given my busy ballet schedule, it was always a push to get assignments in on time. Classes at SAB were intense and challenging; the class size was very small, perhaps only fifteen or twenty girls per class. And every student was talented. I felt that I had a lot of catching up to do; my training had made me a pretty dancer, but not necessarily a strong dancer.
Indeed, there was a new level of competition for me at SAB. I was certainly not the best dancer, though I had my good moments. For every type of ballet step, there was one girl to whom the skill and movement came naturally. I would try to learn from her, always aspiring to be as good as or better than her at some point in the future. For turns, I would watch Monique. For fast, precise footwork, I would watch Elizabeth Walker. For high, effortless jumps, I would watch Tatiana Garcia-Stefanovich. I’m not sure they watched me for anything—perhaps for the way I used my arms in port de bras, a carryover from Washington. Ballet class for us was a silent, beautiful struggle, as each of us strived to be the best and garner the praise of the teachers. Outside class, we were giggly teenagers, but in the studio it was hard, serious work.
During this time, my family was still attending All Angels’ Church, located beside the famous food store Zabar’s on Eightieth and Broadway, about fifteen blocks from SAB and Lincoln Center. It was a small church with a dedicated family of congregants who knew one another well, a strange thing for New York City. Many of the members were professional artists, actors, and singers, and the leaders of the music ministry were talented songwriters with experience on Broadway. Needless to say, the music during the services was excellent.
Going to church was just something my family did on Sundays now, an accepted fact of our life. With the amazing worship music and the genuine, friendly members of All Angels’, it was a pleasure to go. I had a personal and real faith as a Christian, but it had never been tested. It was easy for me to believe, and I didn’t put much intellectual thought into my faith. I wonder now if we really know and have a good grip on our faith in God until we go through a major trial in our lives; is our Savior really a personal one until we have had to go through a true crisis of faith? As ballet began to take over more and more of my life over the years, I unfortunately found it easy to let God slip away. But here, with my family’s traditions, I was laying down what would be good “muscle memory” for faith, and it would serve me well many years down the road. And though I gave up on God for a while, He never stopped pursuing me.
One Sunday during the church service, All Angels’ had a dance offertory instead of the usual music. It was understated and beautiful and moving. I learned that the two girls who had danced were sisters who were both in New York City Ballet: Margaret and Kathleen Tracey. An actress and choreographer, Cornelia Moore, had choreographed their dance. I met them, and they welcomed me into their circle. Meg and Katey took me under their wing and talked to me about their years in SAB and what it was like being professional dancers in the company. And they asked me to join them the next time they danced in church.
We were careful about how we danced in church, since people can be opinionated about how they want their church services done. Our pastor, Martyn Minns, was very much in support of dance as an expression of praise to God, but he helped guide us as to how best to proceed with a dance ministry. We started with very simple steps and movements; most of what we did was gestural at first. We made sure our clothing covered our bodies well and that nothing in our appearance or choreography could be construed as suggestive. And we tried to make clear by the way we danced that we were not actually performing for the congregation sitting in the church. Rather we were using our bodies to worship God and glorify Him with the gift he had given us; we were an augmentation of the congregation’s own worship.
I loved dancing during the church services. It was a chance for me to really feel like I was dancing for God alone, and a way to participate as a server in a church service using the special skills that God had given me. I loved the sense of freedom from criticism that I felt when I danced in the sanctuary. These short moments were about expressing certain feelings or thoughts or ideas that might arise in our relationship with God; since there were no words, the people watching could be touched in a more personal, subjective way because they were engaging their emotions and not the rational sides of their brains that they had used during the sermon. It was wonderful to think that I was touching people in a spiritual way through my dancing.
My family had our first New York Christmas, and my mother ran us around the city, doing every special holiday activity she could find. We gazed at the windows on Fifth Avenue and battled the crowds under the Rockefeller Center tree. We primly held our pinkies aloft at a Christmas Eve high tea at the Plaza Hotel. We stood in the twilit darkness of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to watch the lighting of its Christmas tree. We waited in frigid temperatures at the finish line of the Central Park New Year’s Eve Run, which started at the stroke of midnight along with glorious fireworks. The runners dressed up in costumes and paused at champagne stops along the course. My dad ran in the race, dressed up in a tuxedo T-shirt and a yellow bird mask.
Before we knew it, the holidays were over and SAB started up again. And suddenly we were into Workshop rehearsals. Workshop was the final performance at the end of the regular school year, different from the now-discontinued summer workshop, and it was a big deal. Students from the two top classes got to participate, and everyone got to dance. All the students placed a great deal of importance on these performances because they were the main gateway, besides open auditions, to a career in dance after SAB. Although most of the senior students would be involved in the performances, only a few would get principal parts. Casting of the ballets was a good indication as to who might be asked to be in City Ballet. Furthermore, directors from around the world came to watch the performances and scout out the talent. Often job offers were made directly following the performances. I was turning sixteen that spring, an age at which very few dancers are asked into a professional company. I didn’t expect to be getting offers this year and assumed I would have another year at SAB. After that, I was hoping to be asked into City Ballet, which almost every student at the School of American Ballet wanted to join.
We learned that there would be three ballets in the Workshop program this year: Balanchine’s Serenade, staged by Suki Schorer; an August Bournonville pas de trois, staged by Stanley Williams; and Balanchine’s Symphony in C, staged by Susan Pilarre. Slowly, as rehearsals began to be posted, we started to learn our casting. Although several of us might be learning the featured parts, not all of us would get a chance to actually perform them.
I had mixed feelings about the parts I was slated to learn. In one instance, I was absolutely thrilled. Suki decided to have me learn the part of the Waltz Girl in Serenade. From my previous experience with Serenade at Washington Ballet, I was already in love with the ballet, and the Waltz Girl was my dream part in it. This was the role of the girl who danced with the young man, fell down, and was left alone onstage, and then was lifted to the sky in the end. I couldn’t wait to start rehearsals. I’d hoped to be in Stanley Williams’s ballet because it was seen as the most exclusive of the ballets—it only had three dancers in it, as opposed to the other two ballets, which each had large casts. I wasn’t chosen for that piece, however; instead, I would be one of the demis in the fourth movement of Symphony in C, a ballet with four se
parate movements, each with its own set of principals and demi-soloists.
The hardest thing for me was to keep my eyes on my own path and not look at what the other girls were getting to dance. Some of my classmates had principal parts in all of the ballets. I had to remind myself that it was my first year; I should be thrilled to be doing anything special at all. I could have been chosen to be in the corps for all of the ballets. And I was so grateful about Serenade. Rehearsing that ballet was the highlight of every week.
Soon after rehearsals started, we learned that students from the school would also be performing an excerpt from Serenade on the New York State Theater stage as part of New York City Ballet’s annual Dancers’ Emergency Fund performance in February. There could be only one cast for this performance, and suddenly the whole school was focused on who that cast would be. We learned that the Russian Girl would be danced by Tatiana, even though she had already been made an apprentice with the company and was technically not still a student at SAB. Arch Higgins, one of my friends and a sought-after partner in pas de deux class, was considered by all to be one of the top boys at the school and would be dancing the Waltz Boy. Bryce Jaffe, one of the senior girls, would be dancing the Dark Angel. The big question became Waltz Girl, the role I was training for in the ballet that had made me want to become a professional dancer.
Suki took another girl in my class, Tanya Gingerich, and me aside and told us that they were still deciding which of us would be Waltz Girl for this special performance. Tanya was a gorgeous girl and a beautiful dancer who was older than me and had been at SAB for a while, as had the other dancers chosen to do the lead roles. I felt intimidated by her and thought that by seniority, she automatically should have been chosen. In reality we were in the same class and therefore at the same level, but as the new girl, I felt like the usurper. I was of course terribly excited and wanted to dance the performance more than anything, but I felt stressed and anxious because I knew that the other students weren’t happy with the situation.
Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet Page 5