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