WEBVTT - S2: Ep 2 - Ritual Healing 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.080 When Elizabeth Kendall was in her early twenties, she didn't 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.160 think there would be anything for her in a balannging ballet. 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.760 And I thought it would be old fashioned because it 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:14.000 was ballet, and the ballet in my childhood was old fashioned. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.880 So I resisted going to the New York City Ballet 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.840 for quite some time, sort of a decent amount of time. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.200 It was the nineteen seventies. Elizabeth was a dance writer 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.360 in New York. She was young, ballet was old. She 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:34.800 loved postmodern, avant garde dance. She believed art should be challenging, angry, 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.600 Even good art questioned what came before it exposed hypocrisy. 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:43.000 She hadn't been in New York long, and she was 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.560 still finding her way as a writer and as a person. 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.120 She was trying to move past a family tragedy. Her 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.440 mother had recently died in a car accident. 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.920 I was the driver of the car that killed my mother. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.680 So a lot of stuff to bear, a lot of 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.000 healing that had to go on. But I think a 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.400 healthy psyche heels itself by numbing itself as much as possible. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.480 Now, two years later, she was in New York writing 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:21.120 about dance another critic told her she had to see Balangine, 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:24.480 so she finally dragged herself to the New York State 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:38.640 Theater to see Balanjin's Ramonda variations. Elizabeth had a press 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:42.959 seat and a perfect view. The lights went down and 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:51.720 the music began, and. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:57.000 I just remember a unique kind of orchestral sound, harps 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.960 and flutes and strings mingling, so it sounds a little 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:02.520 like Heaven might sound. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.919 At first glance, it was classic traditional ballet, a man 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.600 and a woman dancing a pot of da many women 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.440 on point wearing pink and blue tutus that flounced like 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:20.519 clouds as they moved. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.560 But what I saw in the stage wasn't anything like 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:32.560 the ballet from my young childhood. This wasn't about old manners. 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:39.200 There were these people jumping and leaping and whirling around 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.920 in formation that animated this stage as a sort of 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:53.640 magic box that manufactured volume and excitement. The music and 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.800 the ballet steps glomed together to make us fear in 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:01.000 which everything was alive, and the effect was of three 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:06.399 D music, music that surrounded you and you were inside it. 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.920 And I remember very distinctly feeling in the audience this 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.960 is a party, and I'm a guest, I've been invited, 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.040 and for some reason that thought was terribly moving and 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:30.960 terribly inclusive, and the thing came over me. This is 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:39.960 a gift, this is joy, this is celebration. I suddenly 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.200 realized not only that this was worth returning to again 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.280 and again because something had reached me in the soul, 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.000 but it also let me know that art did not 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:56.080 have to be stern and challenging. Art could be something 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:04.000 that was purely nourishing and purely exhilarating, that was ecstatic 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:05.840 and tragic at the same time. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.680 After that night, Elizabeth started going to balancing ballets a lot. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.400 But I would go back and I would experiment a little. 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.440 I would go to the theater and the lights would 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.680 go down, and I would say, Okay, I'm going to 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.880 give you my mood. I'm going to give you all 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.680 these troubles and you do something with it, said I 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:31.560 to the stage, and then I would walk out and 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.200 I felt like somebody had rinsed me. That sounds suspiciously 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.039 like baptism talk, but it's all to say that I 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.480 was in fact receiving something that I deeply needed, and 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:46.960 I hadn't known what form I needed it. In a 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.200 some kind of a ceremony, some kind of a ritual, 0:04:50.440 --> 0:05:09.640 kind of healing. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.200 From my heart podcasts in Rococoa Punch. This is the 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:13.000 Turning Room of Mirrors America Lance Part two, Ritual Healing. 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.160 Balancing was not a guy who put on airs. So 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.080 when I began to see the New York City Ballet, 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:34.719 I would sometimes run into Balancing at a fruit stand 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:36.920 on the street in the Upper West Side where he lived, 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.040 and I would like to give a little bow, and 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.760 he would give an exaggeratedly courteous bow because he was 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:46.680 an admirer of women. 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.159 That was the extent of their interaction until she was 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.440 on assignment for the Ford Foundation. She got the chance 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.520 to interview him one on one. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.039 And I dressed up to look nice, and there I 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.920 was presenting myself at his office at the New York 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:12.160 State Theater. And he was very courtly. He was casually 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.919 but beautifully dressed, a gentleman, and you could see that 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:18.960 he moved well. He was light on his feet. 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.200 Elizabeth sat down with Balancing in his office. 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:28.400 He was interested in just having a young, attractively dressed, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:34.720 bursting with nerves and vitality, person of the female presentation 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.719 in front of him, and he just talked. And the 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.760 first thing he said was, so, what we have to 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.599 talk about is boring, yes, And I said, oh, mister Valancine, 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:46.920 I agree, it's going to be boring. And I don't 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:49.400 really want to even take your time. I don't need 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.719 this interview horribly, and I can leave. And he said, no, no, no, 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.839 He said, we do interview and then we talk. He 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:01.880 really thought about questions and answered I'd gotten to the end. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.239 I said, okay, that's the last question. And he said, 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.160 do you know what I did in the revolution And 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.680 I said no, no, I don't. And he said what 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:18.120 I did to eat? He said, I sewed saddles and 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:24.920 he showed me the sewing gestures. He sewed leather saddles 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:25.960 together for horses. 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.760 Balanjinge started to tell Elizabeth the story of his life. 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.920 He told a tale that felt like folklore from a 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.280 place in time, far from the man sitting with her 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:51.680 in his office in New York in nineteen eighty. This 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.920 encounter would launch Elizabeth down a path of deep exploration 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.880 into Balancine's life. She learned to write fluently in Russian 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:01.640 and travel to Saint Peteg to piece together a picture 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.240 of how this man came to popularize ballet in America, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.880 how he created work that would so deeply move her 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.360 in a theater in New York that it helped her 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:23.000 heal after trauma. This is that story. Balancine was born 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:28.120 in nineteen oh four. His name was Georgy Melatanovich Balanshevatza. 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.880 Gyorgy lived in Saint Petersburg, Russia. From the beginning, he 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.880 was steeped in music. His mom played piano, his dad 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.679 was a Georgian opera singer and composer. But they had 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:41.800 limited resources. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.760 Then the extraordinary event happened that they won a lot 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.480 of money, a fortune in a lottery. Or that's the story. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:52.680 It can't exactly be proved. 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.680 Balanchine's family rose to a sort of merchant skilled class, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.320 one that required a certain level of wealth. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.920 So Balancine's childhood was privileged. She had a nanny, and 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.760 then the father, who didn't have any idea what to 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.320 do with all this money, lost it all because he 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.240 listened to people. He gave him bad advice, and which 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.160 meant that the Valanchines gave up their city apartment and 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:17.120 had no more money. 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.760 They moved to the forests of Finland, and they settled 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.920 in a datcha or a summerhouse. They started to live 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.080 in the summerhouse year round. Even through the harsh winners 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.760 in this remote area, Valancine's mother worried about her kid's education. 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.880 That's when she thought of the Imperial Theater School, which 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.839 included the Czar's School of Ballet. It would be a 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:40.120 chance that of free education. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.880 The Imperial Theater School was directly managed as part of 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:48.560 the Tsar's household, and the students had some contact with 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.960 the rural family, you know, with teas, and they would 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:55.440 sometimes visit backstage or whatever. 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.080 At the time, being a ballerina often meant more than 0:09:59.160 --> 0:09:59.880 just being a dance. 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:05.040 Ballet was a very strange beast in Imperial Saint Petersburg 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.880 because it was both an art form and an erotic 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:12.200 market for the grandees and the nobles who attended the 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.760 show and would pick out their mistresses from the dancers 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:29.760 on the stage. Saint Petersburg, in terms of its social 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:35.600 organization was much like Paris, so it had a demi monde, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:41.120 which in Russian is called half existence are half light, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:46.120 which means that a wealthy man or a nobleman, well 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:51.559 born might have two households, two lives, two sets of restaurants, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:57.240 two sets of clothing, two banks. It was accepted to 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.160 have another shadow wife. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.160 Being a shadow wife could give a dancer status or 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.480 financial security. So Balancine's mother wanted her eldest daughter to 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:09.600 become a ballet star. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.240 It's funny to think of a mother wanting her daughter 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.520 to enter into this illicit other world. But this world 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:25.280 offered its own rewards. 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.920 To enter this world, dancers started training his children. Balanchine's 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.120 sister went into audition, and Balanjing tagged along. When they 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.640 got there, though, he was pulled into the audition process 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.160 and something about him stood out to the judges. When 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.640 he was walking in a line of boys, a judge 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:47.479 singled him out and had him walk alone. 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.200 The sister did not get accepted into the school. 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.040 But Balanjing did. He was only nine years old. 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.080 Which was very confusing, no doubt for a nine year old, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.720 because he knew how much his older sister wanted the 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:03.840 post and he got it, and he didn't want it 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:04.160 at all. 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:12.960 He hated dancing, and just like that, George Balanjin was 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:14.720 dropped into the world of ballet. 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.320 His mother dealing with her own disappointment about the daughter, 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.040 and the daughter's disappointment left him there because it was 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.000 a week before the school year started, and he didn't 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.840 expect to be left, and I think that marked his 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:37.800 entire life. 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.360 Balanjing wasn't happy. He even ran away to his aunt's 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.400 house during his first weeks at the boarding school, but 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.520 he was returned to the school and all the intensity 0:12:53.559 --> 0:13:01.839 that their ballet training required. The students woke early every 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.360 morning to the sound of a bell. They were rushed 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.320 out of bed. They didn't even take the time to 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.800 make their beds. That was left for the servants. They'd 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.439 have a quick wash in cold water, put on their uniforms, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.920 and add another bell. Line up for inspection. 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.160 They never went out except for one hour a day. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:20.199 They walked around the block. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.839 They took the walk in two lines, their one chance 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:32.160 to see the outside world. From ten to eleven thirty, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.640 Balanchine started the day with ballet class. Boys and girls 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.320 were separated, boys on the higher floor in front of 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:42.560 a long wall of mirrors opposite the bar. Valanchine said 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.240 he spent a year learning how the foot touches the 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.680 floor after a jump like a bird landing. He said. 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.400 After his beady lunch, students did their academic study, then dinner, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.199 followed by evening classes ballroom dance, pantomime, posture, and fencing 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.559 for the older boy, and then after that they take 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:07.599 music lessons. The students could pick violin or piano. Balancine 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:16.679 chose piano. With all this work and skill building, Valancine's 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.440 world now revolved around the theater. 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.520 His family had been blotted out in his own mind. 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.240 The curtain was closed on the family and the curtain 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.000 was open on the world of the theater. 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:31.880 Elizabeth believes he would carry this hurt from being abandoned 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:32.920 for the rest of his life. 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.000 He himself said that he felt like someone had abandoned 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:42.480 a dog. I think he was incredibly furious, but a 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:47.440 child of nine can't distinguish grief from anger. I imagine 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.280 that his psyche is shut down or closed off to 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.360 his family, and therefore had to open itself to his 0:14:54.440 --> 0:15:00.440 new world, the theater and the theater people. And also 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.160 in an extraordinary letter, he wrote, I hope you understand 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.720 how alone I am. Ever, since my family left me 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:13.720 in the school at age nine, I've been alone. When 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:18.000 I found that letter recently, I realized that that feeling 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.680 of having only the theater for a family and a 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.920 world and a tribe was deeply at the center of him. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.800 The only connection he had left to his family was music. 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.400 That was the one constant, that was his link to 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:38.280 the past. He couldn't emotionally connect anymore. They'd done this 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:43.000 horrible thing, They'd abandon him. But music could somehow connect 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:47.280 his whole self. I imagine that that's why he had this 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:52.000 eerie facility with matching steps to music, because he lived 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:57.880 those steps. They were his language in his innermost dialogue 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.440 with himself. It was ballet steps, not words and music. 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.400 Elizabeth says, Balanchine's teachers saw him as an independent boy 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:12.120 who was courteous, detached, and eerily self confident. Although Balanjing 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:17.120 initially disliked the school, he grew to love ballet. He 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.960 had a revelation on stage, dancing and sleeping beauty. With 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.800 all of the music, the lights, the costumes. He realized 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.800 he was in the middle of a thing of beauty. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:42.080 And then, Elizabeth says, ballet almost died in nineteen seventeen, 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.680 a bullet burst through the theater school window and almost 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:50.040 hit a student. Days later, a crowd in military uniforms 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.240 rushed through the school halls. It was late at night. 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.440 They were searching for monarchists in the dormitories, peering under beds. 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:04.080 The Russian Revolution had been in October. The Bolsheviks, led 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.720 by Vladimir Lenin, took control of the country. The Bolsheviks 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.760 envisioned a world where workers would hold the power. The 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.960 Tsar and his family were murdered, nobility was abolished, Aristocrats 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.000 fled or were killed. The Bolshevik Party would eventually become 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:24.200 the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Tsarist Romanov 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.840 dynasty was over. The Bolsheviks wanted to wipe out any 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.399 whiff of the old aristocracy, and no one knew what 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:38.359 that meant for Ballet. Valentine was thirteen years old. His 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.199 school closed, and life in Saint Petersburg changed dramatically. 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.600 The city of Saint Petersburg suffered after the revolution. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.720 Saint Petersburg had been the capital of the Russian Empire 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:52.320 under the Tsar. Now, with Lenin in power, the government 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.320 moved to Moscow, essentially abandoning Saint Petersburg. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.920 And the resources, which were very few after the revol 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.160 all flowed to Moscow. Leaving Saint Petersburg to starve and freeze. 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.960 There was no heat, there was no fuel, very little food. 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:09.040 All rationed. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.960 Balanchine School was turned into barracks for guards that winter. 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.280 In nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen, it was hard to 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.800 even find bread in a shop. Thirteen year old Balanchine 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.280 and his friend stole fish at night from local barges 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.399 before he could find a job. But then came some 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.440 hope for ballet. It had to do with Lenin's Minister 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.440 of Education, who also oversaw culture and arts. 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.960 Lenin's Minister of Culture had a vision of all the 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.480 arts existing simultaneously and the people learning all about the 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.640 high arts that they'd been deprived of, and Ballet's new 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:46.040 meaning was up for grabs. 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.600 Valancine's ballet school reopened with a new mission. 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:54.480 Which is to make dances for a utopia, the Bolshevik utopia. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.280 Now, the theater would welcome laborers, soldiers, and sailors into 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:05.000 the audience got free tickets from their factories and labor units. Meanwhile, 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:09.040 half the city's population was gone. They were dead from 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:13.640 disease or off to villages in search of food. One 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.320 Russian described people who passed each other in the gray, 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.600 cold city as phantoms and oblivious silence. 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.560 In those conditions, the ballet school started up again with 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:32.840 utopian aims and visions, utopian excitement and no heat and 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.960 no food, which can sharpen your senses to your art 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.200 and impact your health. And it did both with balancing. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.760 The children at ballet school had boils for malnutrition and 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:52.000 lice that carried typhus. On cold nights, the boys and 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.600 girls moved their beds from separate dormitory rooms to the 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.640 old infirmary to stay warm. They suffered, but they bonded 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:02.520 and they felt immersed in art. 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.800 After the Revolution, all the social meetings of the art 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.600 fell away, and they concentrated on the pure art, on 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.160 ballets just as a pure art. 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.040 Since the seventeen hundreds under the Czar, ballets performed in 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.080 Russia had been filled with romantic storylines in royal courts 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.800 or epic tales of castles, princes and maidens. But that 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:29.639 was going away. 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.000 Now. They had a little trouble making new ballets because 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.520 what were they going to be about? It was also 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:41.640 new Now ballet could be both grand and intimate and 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.080 revealed the private emotions of people in a way that 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:47.359 it never had been before. 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.760 Balancine was a teenager. Now he grew his hair long 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.199 and wore eyeliner to make his eyes look soulful. He 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.640 also started to experiment with his own choreography. 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.560 And what it did I think for Balancine was it 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:05.760 broke any lingering narrative associations that the steps held. So 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.760 you know, an Arabesque didn't automatically mean a noble shape. 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.440 It could mean anything that the choreographer wanted it to mean. 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:17.280 Same with all the other steps. They were severed from 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.480 that art that was the czar's family's favorite art. So 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.199 it impacted him on an artistic level deeply. It was 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.760 making an art new he was in on the ground floor. 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.440 But there was one tradition Balanchine would never do away 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:37.159 with worshiping the ballerina. Growing up in the school, he 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:39.720 lived in the world of the ballerina, the world of 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.440 these girls and women whom men watched with awe. 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.160 Those little boys in the school were conditioned to worship 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.120 the presiding ballerinas of the day, just like the nobles 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:53.719 and the grandees and the businessmen in the front row 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:58.800 worshiped them. Then Balanchine realized when he was an adolescent 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.160 that there were some of his own classmates who were 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:06.560 beautiful and worth falling in love with, and he fell 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:08.840 in love with a young woman in the class below 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.480 him named Tomorrow Jevorgeeva. 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.680 Also known as Tamara Gieva. She was thirteen when they met. 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.040 At the time, the school had a faction of traditionalists, 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.840 and they warned her against Balancine and his weird choreographic ideas. 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:24.840 But when Balancine approached her and asked if she wanted 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.560 to work with him, she said of course. He started 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:32.040 to choreograph for Tomorrow and she began to dance his pieces. 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:34.240 One of the first she danced with him was a 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.280 PoTA de potada means step of two in French. It 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:41.080 means a duet, usually between a man and a woman. 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.080 This duet ended with what Tomorrow called a revolutionary moment. 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:56.080 Balanchine knelt, she stood on one foot on point, She 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.760 held one leg in the air behind her in an arabesque, 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.280 and she balanced herself by pressing her mouth against his 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:14.199 Tamora later said this moment was considered terribly erotic. She 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.040 said every time Balancin coreographed, he tried to see how 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:19.200 much he could get away with. He never seemed to 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.720 doubt himself. She wondered if his religious belief made him 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:26.399 feel he was destined for greatness, like he was channeling God. 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:34.359 Balancing and Tamora decided to get married. They were young. 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.040 There are different reports on exactly when it happened, but 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:42.520 Balanging was probably eighteen and Tamora fifteen. They performed in 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.879 little theaters together. They got paid in food more than money, 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.560 and then in nineteen twenty four, when Balanchine was just 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.679 twenty years old, he and Tamara had a chance to 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:58.719 leave Russia, and it was ballet that would let them 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:22.439 do it. Around nineteen twenty four, tomorrow, Jieva and George 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:25.040 Balancin met a croupier, a guy who worked at the 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:28.720 gambling tables at a local casino. His name was Vladimir. 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:32.000 Vladimir made a lot of money working at high stakes table, 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:34.800 and he convinced the government to let him finance a 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:36.080 European ballet tour. 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:39.560 They got out of Russia by asking permission to go 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:42.760 give a tour in Germany, and they got out. 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:46.520 Jim Steichen is a historian who studied Balancine well. 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:48.439 Once they got to Germany, they got picked up by 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:52.960 Serge Diaglov, the really creative impresaria that founded the Ballet 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:53.960 Roofs in Paris. 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:58.520 Diagolovi had created one of the most influential ballet companies ever, 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:00.960 the Ballet m For. 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:04.800 Twenty years, the Ballet russ really defined the new face 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:05.440 of ballet. 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:10.680 Diagolov worked with famous composers like ravel Stravinsky, W. C. 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:15.720 Prokofief and Satis. Painters like Matis and Picasso made sets. 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:22.040 Koco Chanelle was one designer who created costumes. Balancin walked 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:25.359 into all of this as a dancer, but soon Diagolov 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:29.080 let him choreograph too. Balancing started to play with and 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:32.040 push the old school Russian style he had learned growing up. 0:25:33.160 --> 0:25:38.119 Balanchine took that technique and made it new. He would 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:43.959 introduce more acrobatic moves and loved making giant daisy chains 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:48.320 out of his dancers, utterly untraditional moments where people look 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:51.439 like they're swimming in mid air, like they're doing somersaults, Like, 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:53.800 oh my god, what is that. I've never seen that before. 0:25:56.560 --> 0:26:00.800 Balancing was finding his legs as a choreographer, and then 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:04.920 came nineteen twenty nine DIAGOIV, the head of the ballet Russ. 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:09.480 Died, the stock market crashed, World War Two began to 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:12.080 eventually heat up in a very real way. 0:26:12.800 --> 0:26:15.960 Balancing needed to figure out what to do next. The 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:18.480 answer came in the form of a wealthy. 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:23.240 American enter Lincoln Kurstine. This young American who's really interested 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:24.080 in art. 0:26:24.280 --> 0:26:27.199 Lincoln Curstine came from a family with money. He was 0:26:27.240 --> 0:26:30.160 in his twenties and obsessed with all kinds of art, 0:26:30.880 --> 0:26:33.040 So when he met balancing on a trip to London, 0:26:33.480 --> 0:26:34.240 he was enamored. 0:26:34.840 --> 0:26:38.119 Balancing had a nickname when he was a youngster. He 0:26:38.280 --> 0:26:40.119 was called the Rat. He kind of had like a 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:44.480 kind of a snaggle tooth. He wasn't like a movie 0:26:44.520 --> 0:26:48.639 theater actor kind of iconic beauty that way. He was 0:26:48.680 --> 0:26:52.280 on the shorter side, a man of few words. It seems, 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:55.119 he was very social. He loved to cook. 0:26:56.040 --> 0:27:00.920 Even in his twenties. Balancing oozed creativity, which Lincoln Kirstine loved. 0:27:01.359 --> 0:27:05.400 Because he wanted to do something big, he invited Balanging 0:27:05.480 --> 0:27:10.400 to join him in the US to build a ballet company. 0:27:13.400 --> 0:27:16.679 Lincoln Kurstine decided that he was going to make it 0:27:16.680 --> 0:27:21.560 his next big project to create a dance school and 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:26.560 company in America that would synthesize the best of the 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:30.800 Russian ballet traditions, the Italian and French traditions, and make 0:27:30.840 --> 0:27:33.040 it a thoroughly American enterprise. 0:27:36.280 --> 0:27:39.440 They would start a school to train American dancers. Tuition 0:27:39.480 --> 0:27:41.760 would be free so that students could be admitted based 0:27:41.800 --> 0:27:46.560 on quote their perfect possibilities. In exchange, students would agree 0:27:46.600 --> 0:27:50.280 to appear exclusively in school performances for five years so 0:27:50.280 --> 0:27:53.040 they wouldn't get snapped up by Broadway or Hollywood. Once 0:27:53.080 --> 0:27:57.400 they were trained and balancing could make his experimental ballets. 0:27:58.960 --> 0:28:01.520 He arrived in New York and started by teaching dancers 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:06.720 his previous works or making versions of them, but he 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:12.720