Speaker 1: We are not part of the outside world. It's separate
Speaker 1: from us. There is no need for the outside world
Speaker 1: because we are removed from it and apart from it,
Speaker 1: and in our own unique sphere. We had our own universe,
Speaker 1: and that's where you would rehearse every day, most of
Speaker 1: the time, all the time. There are no windows. We
Speaker 1: don't need windows because the outside world doesn't matter. And
Speaker 1: it was exciting, and I thought everybody was the most
Speaker 1: beautiful cheers on the earth that I'd ever seen. And
Speaker 1: they were so talented. People were trained to hone his
Speaker 1: particular sensibilities, even his ethics, so that there would be
Speaker 1: a readiness in all of us to embody his visions.
Speaker 1: We were christened, we were graced. We may not be
Speaker 1: alive tomorrow. And what could you possibly lose? You literally
Speaker 1: have to know, you have to commit and no, and
Speaker 1: so you give up everything else. It is a two
Speaker 1: seven path and you don't feel like you can do
Speaker 1: anything else. M I used to say, what are you
Speaker 1: looking at? What are you looking at? Dear? You can't
Speaker 1: see you, Only I can see you. M In A
Speaker 1: stream of people visited Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan. They went
Speaker 1: to the room at the end of the hall. On
Speaker 1: the left a room with an old man. The nurses
Speaker 1: hadn't seen anything like it. It was like a pilgrimage.
Speaker 1: Many of the visitors were in their twenties. They were
Speaker 1: thin and graceful and carried large bags that smelled like sweat.
Speaker 1: They were young ballerinas who ansd for this man, women
Speaker 1: who saw him as their father, their mother, their knight
Speaker 1: in shining armor, their genius, their lover, their husband, the
Speaker 1: most important person in their lives. His name was George Balanchine,
Speaker 1: but they called him Mr B. I think he'd been
Speaker 1: in the hospital for so long and was losing his
Speaker 1: mind and losing his words. This is Wilhelmina, Frankfurt. She
Speaker 1: was one of the pilgrims. She was twenty six years old,
Speaker 1: and she was a ballerina at New York City Ballet,
Speaker 1: one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world.
Speaker 1: Mr B was the one who put her there at
Speaker 1: George Balanchine was the most famous choreographer alive. He had
Speaker 1: created an entirely new style of ballet and popularized the
Speaker 1: art form in America for fourteen years. Wilhelmina had danced
Speaker 1: for him for fourteen years. He had been the person
Speaker 1: who determined her fate. He was also one of the
Speaker 1: people she loved most in the world. But now his
Speaker 1: health was failing. Where he once modeled arabesques for professional dancers,
Speaker 1: he now had trouble balancing. He leaned on walls when
Speaker 1: he walked, he lad rehearsals seated. He couldn't hear music
Speaker 1: the same way anymore, and he couldn't see the color
Speaker 1: blue correctly. And then he felt he'd been at the
Speaker 1: hospital for more than a month now, with no sign
Speaker 1: of returning to his ballet company. It was not a
Speaker 1: happy time for Wilhelmina. I mean, I knew, we all
Speaker 1: knew that once he was gone, things we're gonna change.
Speaker 1: She went to the hospital when she could with groups
Speaker 1: of dancers. Sometimes they just sit and say hi and
Speaker 1: just in between rehearsals. But this time was different. This
Speaker 1: time she went alone. I went with a mission. Wilomina
Speaker 1: wanted his advice on a role she'd be dancing soon.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask balancing about it. I wanted to
Speaker 1: hear what he had to say. And it was a
Speaker 1: little bit of an excuse to go see him. And
Speaker 1: somehow I think it's probably my denial that he was dying.
Speaker 1: Balancine was in a hospital bed in blue and white
Speaker 1: striped pajamas and a robe. So I sat down with
Speaker 1: him and I said, I'm gonna do the Mother and Nutcracker,
Speaker 1: and can you help me with the part. So then
Speaker 1: he kind of sat up and started coaching the balancing
Speaker 1: she knew came to life, dancing from the waist up
Speaker 1: in a way only balancing could. He said, give me
Speaker 1: your hand, and I gave him my hand. He said, no,
Speaker 1: don't give me your hand like that. And he had
Speaker 1: a big thing about how you hold hands. He said,
Speaker 1: the man must take your hand underneath, and this is
Speaker 1: how they kiss it. He kissed her hand and looked
Speaker 1: at her almost flirtatious, then let her hand drop to
Speaker 1: the bed sheet. I didn't need much. I just wanted
Speaker 1: him to talk about it a little bit, and then things,
Speaker 1: you know, went from there. Balancie told her to open
Speaker 1: a drawer nearby in his hospital cabinet. He had these
Speaker 1: bottles of slive of its. It's really strong. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had slip of its? Oh? Man, it's like gasoline.
Speaker 1: Wilomina didn't have a show that night, she thought, what
Speaker 1: the hell. Balancine patted the bed beside him, and like
Speaker 1: she done so many times before with her choreographer, she
Speaker 1: followed his direction. She hopped on. He said, dear, come
Speaker 1: under the covers from My Heart, podcasts and Rococo Punch.
Speaker 1: This is the turning room of mirrors America Lance Part one.
Speaker 1: Only I can see you. In the US. There is
Speaker 1: ballet before George Balanciine and ballet after George Balanchine. He's
Speaker 1: so in the water of American ballet that even now
Speaker 1: it's hard to divorce him from what it is today,
Speaker 1: the beautiful parts and the hard parts. He grew up
Speaker 1: dancing for the Czar in Russia and survived revel Ucian
Speaker 1: but eventually he landed in New York and created a
Speaker 1: ballet company, the New York City Ballet. He drew a
Speaker 1: blueprint for how to run a ballet school and a
Speaker 1: company under the rule of an artistic director. He emphasized
Speaker 1: devotion to the art form above all else. He corey
Speaker 1: graphed pieces that were abstract, that colored outside the lines
Speaker 1: of traditional ballet. He integrated fast footwork and big movements
Speaker 1: into his technique, pushed dancers beyond their limits. These innovations
Speaker 1: vaulted him to a position of power few artists ever reach.
Speaker 1: Chances are, if you've danced ballet in America, Balancine has
Speaker 1: affected you. I know he affected me. Last season we
Speaker 1: talked about Mother Teresa, the most famous woman in the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church. She and Balancine are very different. But if
Speaker 1: there's a mother tree of American ballet, someone larger than life,
Speaker 1: I'd say it's George Balancin. Like with Mother Teresa, there
Speaker 1: are myths and legends surrounding balancing. He was put on
Speaker 1: a pedestal. He created an insular world where dancers felt chosen,
Speaker 1: like they were part of something bigger, and it was intoxicating.
Speaker 1: Dancer has described him as channeling his artistic vision from
Speaker 1: God and dancers were the vessel for his art. And
Speaker 1: like with Mother Teresa, that can get very complicated. What
Speaker 1: was Balancine's role in his dancers lives or in your life?
Speaker 1: She used to say, I am your mother in class,
Speaker 1: I am a mother. He well, he was everything. Wilhelmina
Speaker 1: entered Balancin's world for the first time in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: She was thirteen years old. She had just left her
Speaker 1: family to move to New York on her own to
Speaker 1: attend balancing school the pipeline for his ballet company. They
Speaker 1: had these old studios on the Upper West Side and Broadway.
Speaker 1: There were stairs that led down into the studio where
Speaker 1: the class was held, and she remembers one day she
Speaker 1: looked up and what I thought was an old man
Speaker 1: who was standing at the top of the stairs, and
Speaker 1: he came down and he sat with the teacher, and
Speaker 1: suddenly he came over and he had his hands all
Speaker 1: over my body. I was doing Arabesque. She froze, suspended
Speaker 1: an arabesque, one leg lifted behind her, an arm outstretched
Speaker 1: in front of her face, and he took my Arab
Speaker 1: bask and he turned it so that it was a
Speaker 1: more open position, and that my hand was lengthy and
Speaker 1: extended and looking over my eyes. And that was my
Speaker 1: introduction to George balancing. And I didn't really understand what
Speaker 1: he was doing, but I under yet now that he
Speaker 1: was looking to see if I was capable of what
Speaker 1: his vision for technique for his ballots was. It was
Speaker 1: her introduction to Balancian's style of ballet, Unlike anything she'd
Speaker 1: experienced before. Balancie had this fantastical way of describing movement.
Speaker 1: He would tell danswers to present a foot as if
Speaker 1: it were a diamond placed on a red velvet pillow.
Speaker 1: Wilhelmina sense to that trusting him would lead to greatness.
Speaker 1: You are blessed with having been in the presence of
Speaker 1: that kind of genius. And I was scared. I guess
Speaker 1: that I might not measure up, or I wasn't as
Speaker 1: good as the other kids. I was nervous about unlearning
Speaker 1: what I had been taught and re learning this new, complex,
Speaker 1: very demanding technique. It was big, animated, acrobatic in ways
Speaker 1: that seemed physically impossible to pull off. That technique Balancie
Speaker 1: used to describe it as more. Used to say more
Speaker 1: and more and more park sausages mom More. It was more, higher, faster, sleeker, extended.
Speaker 1: This technique was just take what you know and push it.
Speaker 1: M After that day in the classroom with Balancine, well
Speaker 1: Amina often noticed his eyes on her. He was watching me.
Speaker 1: How did it feel when Balancie noticed you? When you
Speaker 1: can tell he was watching you? You know, foll I
Speaker 1: loved it. You know I loved you. I mean, how
Speaker 1: could you not love it? But At one point he
Speaker 1: kept pulling me front, and it became kind of embarrassing
Speaker 1: because I had friends that it wasn't happening to. People
Speaker 1: would assume that you were flirting or doing you know,
Speaker 1: and there was jealousy around it, and that you were
Speaker 1: getting close to him because you wanted to dance better parts.
Speaker 1: Balancing had a track record of blurring the professional and
Speaker 1: the personal, falling in love with his favorite dancers and
Speaker 1: marrying some of them. At sixteen, Wilhelmina became an apprentice
Speaker 1: with New York City Ballet, the transition from student to
Speaker 1: potential professional dancer in Balancing's company, we got dressed up
Speaker 1: for class because you wanted him to pay attention to you.
Speaker 1: Everybody wore flowers in their hair, and he spoke that
Speaker 1: he spoke so quietly, like in a rehearsal. Only dancers
Speaker 1: could hear him. He had to be totally tuned into him,
Speaker 1: totally tuned in well. He completely wanted all of our
Speaker 1: attention and all of our devotion. Not unlike the convent,
Speaker 1: we were not supposed to be interested in men. Balancing
Speaker 1: felt like if we were distracted by a man, it
Speaker 1: would pull us away from what he wanted us to do.
Speaker 1: He really wanted us to be completely and totally, just
Speaker 1: deeply involved in our dancing. He didn't really want you
Speaker 1: to have children. He didn't really want you to get married.
Speaker 1: So nobody got married, or if they did, it was
Speaker 1: in secret, and you hid your boyfriend. Wilhelmina learned this
Speaker 1: the hard way. I was at a cafe across from
Speaker 1: Lincoln Center, called Your Allows, and I was with a
Speaker 1: date and who should walk by but Balancing. He stopped
Speaker 1: in front of them, and he looked at the guy
Speaker 1: and he said, will Helmina has the ability to make
Speaker 1: a man relax. I think it was sort of an
Speaker 1: insult to the guy was like, and then he turned
Speaker 1: to a Lamina and he said, dear, you think you're
Speaker 1: in Paris, but you're not. And I went, okay, got it.
Speaker 1: You know what was he saying? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: often I hear quotes from Balancing, and they're indirect and
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what they mean. They're indirect, and
Speaker 1: he was sarcastic, very sarcastic. I think what he meant
Speaker 1: by that is, you know, New York, you're sitting outdoors,
Speaker 1: the busses go by and it's you know, loud and dirty,
Speaker 1: but you're not here in the romance of Paris with
Speaker 1: this gentleman. I just took that as I'm not that
Speaker 1: happy about this, you know, especially because it's kind of
Speaker 1: like I was on his turf in a way right
Speaker 1: across the street. I laughed, you know, I just laughed
Speaker 1: at it. He was just out to like just destroying
Speaker 1: my time with the guy. I think, you whatever. I
Speaker 1: think he was just throwing his weight around Mr b.
Speaker 1: Let let the guy know she's mine. I had her first, right,
Speaker 1: I had her first, you know. At the same time
Speaker 1: he's having relationships with some of his dancers. Yeah, he did.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't know that I thought about it
Speaker 1: that much at the time. It was just the way
Speaker 1: it was. Balancine asked his dancers to keep their mind
Speaker 1: in the studio. In the studio, he asked for their
Speaker 1: complete trust. He used to say, well are you looking
Speaker 1: at In terms of as a dancer, we look in
Speaker 1: the mirror, right, So he'd say, what are you looking at, dear?
Speaker 1: You can't see you, only I can see you. To
Speaker 1: will Amina, it meant the mirror could lie. You're just
Speaker 1: seeing an image of yourself. Fleeting as you're going by.
Speaker 1: The audience is seeing something different. Don't listen to the mirror,
Speaker 1: listen to my voice. You can't see you, only I
Speaker 1: can see you. Balancine controlled the company, controlled who got parts,
Speaker 1: controlled your life. He could recast your role at any time.
Speaker 1: He could aside you're out of the company. Your artistry
Speaker 1: and career were in his hands, and he was seen
Speaker 1: as a living genius. Many dancers have praised him for
Speaker 1: his gentlemanly manner. Others have said he could be cold
Speaker 1: at times cruel even if he didn't like your dancing.
Speaker 1: He might be sarcastic or blunt. But Balancine seemed to
Speaker 1: like Wilhelmina. She wonders if it's because she resembled one
Speaker 1: of his ex wives, another dancer. She was built like her,
Speaker 1: had a long nose like hers, and while some dancers
Speaker 1: feared Mr. B. Wilomina didn't. For some reason. She felt
Speaker 1: he was lonely. It was very easy for me to
Speaker 1: talk to him. I think because he was ultimately very
Speaker 1: shy himself. He wasn't that comfortable with that many people.
Speaker 1: Balancine and Wilhelmina often walked in the same direction at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, not surprising since all of
Speaker 1: the dancers lived in the area, including Mr. B. One night,
Speaker 1: when they were walking home, Wilhelmina had an idea and
Speaker 1: I just turned him and I did and said, you
Speaker 1: want to have dinner at my house sometime? He said yes.
Speaker 1: I said to him, I'm gonna cut this is so
Speaker 1: kids stupid. I'm going to cook cocoa van, which I
Speaker 1: knew nothing about, nothing about it or how to cook it. No.
Speaker 1: Wilhelmina was nineteen, Balancine was seventy one, and Balancine was
Speaker 1: big on food. He was known for his refined palette
Speaker 1: and cooking. Will Almina was out of her depth. So
Speaker 1: I got a cocoa van recipe and I ran to
Speaker 1: what was called the Nevada Meat Market. I said, help,
Speaker 1: how do I cook cocoa van? I said, what caught?
Speaker 1: What would Mr be by? And because that was where
Speaker 1: he shopped, he said, oh, he would buy this, he
Speaker 1: would buy that. So I got all this stuff and
Speaker 1: then I went to sixty seven Wine in Spirits, which
Speaker 1: was the liquor store I knew he went to, and
Speaker 1: I said, I need some wine that this VALANCHI would
Speaker 1: like to drink, and they like laughed at me because
Speaker 1: he's such a wine mystery, is like a wine collector.
Speaker 1: And then they were like, how much do you want
Speaker 1: to spend? I was like ten dollars, you know, so
Speaker 1: I'm nineteen. I blew my whole paycheck on it. He
Speaker 1: came over and he showed up with two bottles of
Speaker 1: seven Lafitte Rothschild's poiac I think it was a poiyak.
Speaker 1: Those are now like five thousand dollar bottles of one,
Speaker 1: and even then they were hundreds of dollars. So I
Speaker 1: was like, you won't my wine. It's no dear, I
Speaker 1: think we'll drink this. But at that dinner, that was
Speaker 1: like a turning point in my relationship with him, because
Speaker 1: first of all, he said he was really impressed with
Speaker 1: my cooking. But he stayed a long time and we
Speaker 1: had amazing conversation. Amazing conversation. It wasn't sexual, honestly. I
Speaker 1: think he appreciated that I asked him over for dinner,
Speaker 1: because for the most part, he just went to dinner
Speaker 1: with his principal dancers at the time, or he went
Speaker 1: home alone. I don't know why people assumed that you
Speaker 1: were having sex with him or whatever with him, balanciing flirty,
Speaker 1: but he was such a old world gallant gentleman about
Speaker 1: all of it. You know. He did that thing where
Speaker 1: if he liked you, he would buy you perfume. It
Speaker 1: was something he didn't do for everyone, just special dancers.
Speaker 1: Wilmina knew this when she was about twenty one years
Speaker 1: old on tour with the company in Paris. Balancine was
Speaker 1: in his early seventies. We were in the theater. It
Speaker 1: was just a mean in between rehearsals, balancing came over.
Speaker 1: He handed her a bag, pretty little shopping bag, and
Speaker 1: he just heard your this is for you. Inside was
Speaker 1: a bottle of perfume. It was a huge bottle of anphony.
Speaker 1: He picked the scent, and I was such a brat
Speaker 1: that it took up to my hotel room and I
Speaker 1: decided I didn't like it, so I poured half of
Speaker 1: it down the drain, Probably poured hundreds of dollars perfume
Speaker 1: down the drain. And then later when I got older,
Speaker 1: I was like, you are an idiot, Willie, or just
Speaker 1: an idiot. Well, it's understandable. I mean he's picking how
Speaker 1: you smell, and it is your body award and did
Speaker 1: that feel like a big deal to you at the time,
Speaker 1: where you're like, oh, he's kind of chos me. I
Speaker 1: was a little embarrassed because by then I would had
Speaker 1: been around long enough to know that people gossiped that
Speaker 1: if he was going to do that for you, that
Speaker 1: he was sleeping with you. But what he wasn't. I wasn't.
Speaker 1: These insinuations felt manageable to wil Amina. She still saw
Speaker 1: Balancing as a non threatening old man, an old man
Speaker 1: who gave her the opportunity to make meaningful art. She
Speaker 1: loved to watch him spin dances out of thin air.
Speaker 1: She remembers when he choreographed the opening moments of Symphony
Speaker 1: in Three Movements. The composer Igor Stravinsky had written the
Speaker 1: music and personally told Balancing it should be a ballet.
Speaker 1: And I remember Mr Vigos doing the first step, which
Speaker 1: the music goes rum bum bum bum bum, And we
Speaker 1: were all in a line and he just pulled his
Speaker 1: leg in tight, sort of like a squat position, rolled
Speaker 1: his right arm, stuck it up at the air, and
Speaker 1: did press and push into a low arab ast position.
Speaker 1: And he said, okay, everybody do that. So we all
Speaker 1: did it, and the effect. From that opening moment, it's
Speaker 1: like you just knew that you were involved in what
Speaker 1: was going to be a masterpiece. And the line of
Speaker 1: dancers and white leotards looked like a line of cannons
Speaker 1: firing in a row. They windmill their arms, jabbed them straight,
Speaker 1: They weave in and out of each other. They look
Speaker 1: like they're about to collide. He worked furiously, furiously, He
Speaker 1: had more energy than everyone, and that was just one rehearsal.
Speaker 1: Then he'd go to the next rehearsal, the next rehearsal,
Speaker 1: he'd weave a whole different piece that would also go
Speaker 1: down in the dance history books. But being the object
Speaker 1: of balancing's artistic expression could be relentless. When you're working
Speaker 1: in that kind of intensity all the time, you're doing
Speaker 1: hos a week, your rehearsal all day, you're doing three
Speaker 1: ballets a night. You're doing some core parts, some principal parts,
Speaker 1: some soloist parts. You don't have any relief or any
Speaker 1: life at all. And there was no counseling or no
Speaker 1: thinking about what's the mental health of these young artists.
Speaker 1: All that didn't exist. You just had to tough it out.
Speaker 1: You might get cast in a difficult role last minute.
Speaker 1: Have to learn it immediately, and when you go on
Speaker 1: stage to dance it, you know that how you perform
Speaker 1: will determine your future. It's something Wilmina did a lot.
Speaker 1: She remembers one time when she was thrown into a
Speaker 1: complex piece right before a show, and I learned it
Speaker 1: on the spot. It's really hard. There's no music, it's
Speaker 1: just beeps and bops and things, and and so they
Speaker 1: talked me through that. Mr b was in the elevator
Speaker 1: with her when she went down to the stage to perform,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, and he said, just take
Speaker 1: it one movement at a time, and she did m
Speaker 1: I never got injured. I was on my way to everything.
Speaker 1: But a year after she got that perfume bottle, she
Speaker 1: was running ragged. She had been cast in balancings A
Speaker 1: Midsummer Night's Dream. She was dancing the role of Apolada
Speaker 1: in Greek mythology. Apol it is the former queen of
Speaker 1: the Amazon's. I didn't feel like I was suited to
Speaker 1: the role because although I was long and tall and
Speaker 1: strong and could do those kind of tall girl parts,
Speaker 1: this was just not me. She even talked to balancing
Speaker 1: about it. I said, I don't think this is a
Speaker 1: good part for me, but it was like a test,
Speaker 1: like I just wanted me to get through it. One
Speaker 1: day was particularly bad. I just thought I was dancing
Speaker 1: so badly. I wasn't a great turner, you know, as
Speaker 1: good at other things, but I was falling off my
Speaker 1: turns like so badly. There's a set of whats that
Speaker 1: you do there with a bow and arrow in your hands,
Speaker 1: and it's in fog, and I was struggling with them anyway,
Speaker 1: and I didn't get through it. And I failed in
Speaker 1: this role so badly that I left the stage in
Speaker 1: a stage rehearsal with an orchestra, which is a very
Speaker 1: expensive rehearsal. I think I had a little nervous breakdown.
Speaker 1: I think I was popping, you know, I was just
Speaker 1: popping and I just couldn't handle it. I just walked
Speaker 1: out of the theater in tears. Wilmina decided to talk
Speaker 1: to Balancine. I went to him and I said, I'd
Speaker 1: like to take a leave of absence. I just can't
Speaker 1: do this. But Balancine didn't want her to go. He
Speaker 1: told me this story of there were twelve nuns waiting
Speaker 1: for Christ. Two calm down from heaven, and six of
Speaker 1: them brought enough oil. I don't even know if this
Speaker 1: is a real Bible story. Yeah, so he said, six
Speaker 1: of them brought enough oil to last the night. Six
Speaker 1: only brought enough for a little while. So the six
Speaker 1: that didn't bring enough had to leave and go get oil.
Speaker 1: And when they came back, Christ had already come, and
Speaker 1: the other six nuns had gone to heaven. That one
Speaker 1: I got, right, you can go, but I might not
Speaker 1: be here when you come back. I guess that was
Speaker 1: his way of trying to talk me out of it. Right,
Speaker 1: And he's like the Christ figure in that analogy. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that story he told about nuns missing their chance at heaven,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a story. It was real to dancers
Speaker 1: in the company. It was how the place worked. They
Speaker 1: were always younger dancers waiting in the wings to take
Speaker 1: your place. And Balancine had no problem moving on without you.
Speaker 1: So I said him, I understand that I'm taking a
Speaker 1: risk that I had to leave. She took some time,
Speaker 1: worked at a clothing store, dated got married, but her
Speaker 1: decision to leave didn't stick. Not long after, I was
Speaker 1: modeling at tavern on the green in the clothing store
Speaker 1: and I walked by and there he was. He was
Speaker 1: with another ballerina, one of his top dancers and closest friends.
Speaker 1: And I walked by their table. I went oh, and
Speaker 1: he said, oh dear, it's you. And I realized that
Speaker 1: I missed dancing and I missed him. I missed my life.
Speaker 1: So I called him. I had his phone ever, I
Speaker 1: still have it in an old day book, and I said, hello,
Speaker 1: Mr B. It's the prodigal daughter. Wilhelmina called balanching. But
Speaker 1: it was a long shot for her to get accepted
Speaker 1: back into the company. Generally, once you left, you were out,
Speaker 1: just rare exceptions. So I called him and I said, hello,
Speaker 1: Mr B, it's the prodigal daughter. And he said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: how Mina. I said, I want to come back, and
Speaker 1: he said, meet me in my office tomorrow. She showed
Speaker 1: up to his office. Her fate was in his hands.
Speaker 1: They talked. He told her to come to the theater
Speaker 1: the next day she could start dancing again. So he
Speaker 1: didn't punish me. He forgave me. He forgave me for it.
Speaker 1: He'd forgiven her for leaving the company, for leaving him.
Speaker 1: I come to find out that it was unheard of,
Speaker 1: so he really was so good to me. However, in
Speaker 1: that meeting was the first time he tried to kiss me,
Speaker 1: and you're the first person I've told that too. What happened.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like to seal the deal. He
Speaker 1: went in and I pushed him away. I said, Mr,
Speaker 1: b I'm married. It was awkward because I knew that
Speaker 1: I was treating him like a man much older than
Speaker 1: myself and when she was, which she was. And also
Speaker 1: it's awkward to refuse anybody in life, and awkward for
Speaker 1: me to stop somebody who had been so good to
Speaker 1: me and who I cared about so much. So that
Speaker 1: was really complicated. When Wilhelmina said she was married, Balancine
Speaker 1: pulled back. He stopped. He just like went, okay, I
Speaker 1: got up and left. I got up and left. It
Speaker 1: was really it was not that big, but I guess
Speaker 1: it was big, right, as sometimes those things are like
Speaker 1: like kind of both at once. Yeah, that's an intense
Speaker 1: moment for him to try to kiss you, because it
Speaker 1: was the moment where she almost had the most power
Speaker 1: over you, because he wanted to come back and he
Speaker 1: was going to decide whether you did or not. And
Speaker 1: in that meeting he leans in to kiss you wait,
Speaker 1: which is like, are you going to get your job
Speaker 1: back or not? But I mean I was. I had been,
Speaker 1: you know, in a way refusing him always in retrospect,
Speaker 1: there had been that energy in the air throughout. Yes,
Speaker 1: absolutely there was that energy. There was that energy. When
Speaker 1: you feel that energy, it's sometimes you can't always put
Speaker 1: your finger on it, but you know it's there. That's
Speaker 1: exactly right. It was a complicated moment, very complicated moment emotionally.
Speaker 1: I never came up again until the hospital Roosevelt Hospital December,
Speaker 1: when Balancing was seventy eight years old, will Amina was
Speaker 1: She visited him to ask about her role in Balancing Nutcracker.
Speaker 1: She had requested to play the role of the mother
Speaker 1: of the main character. It wasn't a fancy part, but
Speaker 1: she'd been thinking about motherhood lately. Of course, Balancie didn't
Speaker 1: like his dancers to have kids, Like a lot of
Speaker 1: dancers in the company. She'd had several abortions, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to have children. I was getting older, and there
Speaker 1: was this one moment in particular she couldn't wait to perform.
Speaker 1: It's a simple moment it doesn't exist in other versions
Speaker 1: of the ballet. Justin Balanchine's there's this incredible piece of music.
Speaker 1: It's a violent solo, and all it is is the
Speaker 1: mother with a candle walking across in the front of
Speaker 1: the stage looking for Marie, looking for her daughter. She's
Speaker 1: looking for her because she's not in her bed. She's
Speaker 1: fallen asleep by the Christmas tree with her nutcracker, which
Speaker 1: her mother wouldn't let her take to bed. So the
Speaker 1: scrim is down, and this violin solo happens. You walk across,
Speaker 1: you're looking, looking, looking, and the scrim goes up and
Speaker 1: Marie is there, she's fallen asleep, and then all you
Speaker 1: do is cover her up, and and it's a It's
Speaker 1: just a really beautiful moment. That balancing added to the story.
Speaker 1: Balancine told her that as the mother in this ballet,
Speaker 1: she was the grand dame of the house. She had
Speaker 1: to be elegant. He showed her how the men should
Speaker 1: kiss her hand. He directed her to get the bottle
Speaker 1: of Slivovitz and join him on the bed, and Wilhelmina
Speaker 1: began her dance with Balancine, the strangest ballet she'd ever
Speaker 1: danced and we drank. We drank it out of hospital glasses.
Speaker 1: They were real glasses at the time. We talked about
Speaker 1: all kinds of things while we were drinking. We talked
Speaker 1: about the theater. We were laughing. He had this calendar
Speaker 1: with Christie Brinkley on it, know, pin up calendar of hers.
Speaker 1: He said, dear, come under the covers. So I got
Speaker 1: into the covers. He put one arm around her. Women
Speaker 1: were his whole life. Women were his inspiration. So to
Speaker 1: have one of your women come in and be with
Speaker 1: you in a way, it's like that's the was always
Speaker 1: the conquest for him to always enjoy women, including physically.
Speaker 1: It's funny in the hospital. It didn't bother me because
Speaker 1: I felt almost like how you know, when you're really sick,
Speaker 1: you're like a mother, almost like you get into bed
Speaker 1: to hold the person and comfort them. I felt like that.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel grossed out by it. I felt sad
Speaker 1: for him, and also I was very drunk. It must
Speaker 1: have been a really hilarious looking vision of the two
Speaker 1: of us in that hospital. Did like sitting under the
Speaker 1: covers together drinking, but also how normal, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, what you would do with someone that you
Speaker 1: love that's at the end of their life. You you
Speaker 1: do whatever it takes to just have a good time
Speaker 1: with them. And as long as that person was alive
Speaker 1: and functioning, that my life was kind of okay too.
Speaker 1: Half the bottle of Slivovitz was gone now, and he
Speaker 1: tried to open my shirt. He said, just let me
Speaker 1: investigate a little. Wilhelmina pretended to be in control, to
Speaker 1: know what to do. Part of her thoughts, after all
Speaker 1: of these years resisting, maybe just let him. I said no, no,
Speaker 1: Mr v, come on, you know, And he said, no,
Speaker 1: just a little dear. So I did let him open
Speaker 1: my shirt and he didn't get very far. Yeah. Then
Speaker 1: he tried to kiss her. She held her lips shut.
Speaker 1: Will Almina would write about this moment later with some distance.
Speaker 1: She wrote about how balanching was like a father to her.
Speaker 1: He was too many, She wrote, his hands are there,
Speaker 1: but fathers don't do this. And because I love this
Speaker 1: father so much, and because I hate him for not
Speaker 1: loving me enough to not do this, I pushed him
Speaker 1: away and step off the bed. I stumbled out of
Speaker 1: the hospital with the rest of the bottle in my hand,
Speaker 1: into a cab like God and one, three, four, six
Speaker 1: and one choose you have to stay, just stay. Forty
Speaker 1: years later, she doesn't perform ballet anymore. Instead, she teaches, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got find of it. This one had that emotional
Speaker 1: piece to it, right. I think, what's the way that
Speaker 1: else put in field of music through your body? Field
Speaker 1: of music through your body and your face. She's the
Speaker 1: artistic director of a ballet school or California, the Stapleton
Speaker 1: School of the Performing Arts and get breath that flow
Speaker 1: off and all this week she's teaching a special workshop
Speaker 1: for her teenage students. It's all about balancing. But she
Speaker 1: doesn't tell them this hospital story. Instead, she tells them
Speaker 1: about how to open their arabesques by pulling one shoulder back,
Speaker 1: the way Mr B taught her too. She tells them
Speaker 1: what it was like to dance for Mr B. Mr Van,
Speaker 1: She was very involved in our end of visuality. He
Speaker 1: took a lot of time to understand who you are.
Speaker 1: She teaches them the choreography just almost ready to her form,
Speaker 1: and how to move their feet little feet knows boys
Speaker 1: keep a little And she shows these students why she
Speaker 1: loves balancing. You have the same growth in the music again.
Speaker 1: Right and exist well here, and you have to swell
Speaker 1: within yourself. Most of all, she talks about his artistry,
Speaker 1: but made balancing great ye all way to the end.
Speaker 1: He's the why. She's one of many dancers who do this,
Speaker 1: former ballerinas who passed down his repertoire all around the world,
Speaker 1: like priestesses with sacred knowledge. They need to pass on,
Speaker 1: afraid that the nuances of his art will be lost.
Speaker 1: There are not very many of us left around that
Speaker 1: actually grew up with balancing. We are a dying breed
Speaker 1: and we know it. I realized that it was like
Speaker 1: I grew up with Mozart. You know. I came across
Speaker 1: this one quote I can't stop thinking about. It's from
Speaker 1: Vera Zorina, one of Balancine's wives. Like all of his wives,
Speaker 1: she was about Arena, who danced for him. She wrote quote.
Speaker 1: He would speak of the suffering faces of dancers, comparing
Speaker 1: them to saints. He meant spiritual suffering. To George, dancers
Speaker 1: were saints because they worked harder and longer. We're obedient,
Speaker 1: never talked back, We're always paid the least, and then
Speaker 1: went on stage and danced like angels. To me, this
Speaker 1: sums up how Balancine wanted the women in his company
Speaker 1: to be Balancine's dancers would change their bodies for him,
Speaker 1: some through extreme dieting, drugs, or surgery. Some would have
Speaker 1: abortions or avoid romantic relationships to focus on the job.
Speaker 1: Some would fall in love with Balancine, and decades after
Speaker 1: Balancin died, Ballerina's are still dancing for him, still seeking
Speaker 1: his approval. Coming up on The Turning, im serving something
Speaker 1: larger than myself. If it's not God than our form
Speaker 1: or balancing for me, it felt like it's like balancing's
Speaker 1: ghosts or something. The Turning is a production of Rococo
Speaker 1: Punch and I Heeart Podcasts. It's written and produced by
Speaker 1: Allen Lance Lesser and Me. Our story editor is Emily Foreman.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound designed by James Trout. Jessica Carissa is
Speaker 1: our assistant producer. Andrea Swage is our digital producer. Fact
Speaker 1: checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado Special thanks to Kate Osborne
Speaker 1: and Natalie Jones. Our executive producers are John Paratti and
Speaker 1: Jessica Albert at Rococo Punch, I Get, Trina Norvelle and
Speaker 1: Nikki Etre at iHeart podcasts, YEA for photos and more
Speaker 1: details on the series, follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch,
Speaker 1: and you can reach out via email The Turning at
Speaker 1: Rococo punch dot com. M I'm Erica Llance. Thanks for listening. M.