Speaker 1: Before we get started, I want to let you know
Speaker 1: that we'll be talking about eating disorder behaviors pretty candidly
Speaker 1: in this episode. If you find that topic triggering, please
Speaker 1: feel free to skip this one. Risking your health just
Speaker 1: isn't worth it. What was your first impression of Balanching
Speaker 1: like the first time you actually saw him in person?
Speaker 2: Most of it was first hearsay because there was such
Speaker 2: a cult around all of it. In the school, of course,
Speaker 2: it was an insular world into which we were permitted
Speaker 2: to enter and chosen, and so I don't even know
Speaker 2: really what that first impression could have been, other than
Speaker 2: nervous anticipation and excitement and a desire to be seen.
Speaker 1: Stephanie the Land is a form dancer. When she stepped
Speaker 1: into Balancine School for the first time, he was in
Speaker 1: his mid sixties. Stephanie was fourteen, and she knew the
Speaker 1: only way to dance for Balancine in his company was
Speaker 1: to trade in his school, the School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2: People were not taken from the outside. We had to
Speaker 2: go through the school for at least two or three
Speaker 2: years even to be considered for the company. Nobody ever
Speaker 2: came from the outside. We always had to be an insider.
Speaker 2: It was definitely a unique situation in that way.
Speaker 1: And getting into that school wasn't easy to do. Do
Speaker 1: you remember your first day at the School of American Ballet.
Speaker 2: I first remember my audition. I think I went in
Speaker 2: sixty eight. It was a private audition, and I went
Speaker 2: in and I was fourteen and a half and I
Speaker 2: only had had occasional classes. And I was told point shoes.
Speaker 2: I didn't have point shoes. I'd never been on point.
Speaker 1: Stephanie didn't know a lot of the names of the steps.
Speaker 1: So Diana Adams, a famous balanchine dancer who'd retired from
Speaker 1: the stage and was running the school, demonstrated every step for.
Speaker 2: Her and she showed me everything. I imitated her by
Speaker 2: all standards of what I understand now. I was extremely
Speaker 2: unsophisticated and it was terrifying. I came out and she
Speaker 2: came to my mother and she said, well, she's years behind.
Speaker 2: I'll put her in with the eleven year olds. It's
Speaker 2: unlikely that it's going to work. Wow, but she does
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: I love to move, I love to dance. I was
Speaker 2: fascinated by where I was, and I was enchanted by
Speaker 2: the people around me.
Speaker 1: Stephanie didn't know what she was doing, but she imitated well.
Speaker 1: She could copy the other students and replicate the movement,
Speaker 1: even when she didn't know what steps came next or
Speaker 1: even what it was called.
Speaker 2: And three months later I was moved up. It was exciting,
Speaker 2: and I thought everybody was the most beautiful creatures on
Speaker 2: the earth that I'd ever seen, and they were so talented.
Speaker 2: So I'd come home report about all these people I'd
Speaker 2: seen and how beautiful they were. And also there's something
Speaker 2: about being elite, you know. I'm just going to say that,
Speaker 2: as much as I don't like to say that about
Speaker 2: being chosen and elite, you know, there's this ego. Part
Speaker 2: of your sense of self recognizes that that you are
Speaker 2: being selected and selected in our particular arena where it
Speaker 2: is so super refined and quite close to the outside world.
Speaker 2: We were christened, we were graced to be allowed in
Speaker 2: the school and allowed to be in that studio, and
Speaker 2: allowed to be in relationship to that organization, to the organization.
Speaker 2: It's like when you first fall in love and you
Speaker 2: feel like you're the person. Oh my god, it's me.
Speaker 2: How can that not be? Throwing from my heart?
Speaker 1: Podcasts and Rococo Punch, This is the turning Room of Mirrors.
Speaker 1: I'm Erica Lance, Part three call. When Stephanie started at
Speaker 1: the School of American Ballet, she was entering something big.
Speaker 1: New York was in the middle of what came to
Speaker 1: be known as the dance boom in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: New York was a hub for all kinds of dance.
Speaker 3: I was going to two or three performances a week.
Speaker 1: Dance historian Lynn Garifola remembers being at the start of
Speaker 1: her career as a critic and writer in the seventies.
Speaker 1: It seemed like everyone was talking about dance.
Speaker 3: There were performances everywhere, Tickets were still relatively cheap. There
Speaker 3: were ballet companies coming from many different places. So I
Speaker 3: think there was this sense of energy and possibility.
Speaker 1: And at the center of this movement was Balancing. By then,
Speaker 1: he'd been in the US for thirty years, He'd built
Speaker 1: a ballet school and a ballet company. As far as
Speaker 1: the dance world was concerned, he'd become the Shakespeare of
Speaker 1: neoclassical ballet, and audience has got to watch him write
Speaker 1: his masterpieces right in front of them.
Speaker 4: Balancine and the New York City Ballet became really one
Speaker 4: of the pre eminent artistic institutions. These were just one
Speaker 4: of the preeminent cultural moments in New York City.
Speaker 1: This is historian Jim Steikin.
Speaker 4: He got people who aren't necessarily into ballet to care
Speaker 4: about ballet. He made ballet something that was on TV
Speaker 4: on a regular basis. He turned certain ballerinas into cultural
Speaker 4: icons that girls wanted to emulate and inspire them to
Speaker 4: study ballet.
Speaker 5: One thing I would like to say is that it's
Speaker 5: pretty clear when you read all the reviews beginning in
Speaker 5: the late sixties, nineteen seventies into the nineteen eighties, but
Speaker 5: Balancin is portrayed as someone who could do no wrong,
Speaker 5: even when he does really terrible ballet. The language is
Speaker 5: kind of nice. I mean, who read some of those things.
Speaker 5: It's like he could do no wrong. It's like he
Speaker 5: was a god.
Speaker 2: Balancine was ever present in the school. He could walk
Speaker 2: into any class any day and wait to see what
Speaker 2: would catch his eye.
Speaker 1: As the world around her worshiped Balancine. Stephanie Land was
Speaker 1: still a teenager, hoping to join his company someday. One
Speaker 1: day she was asked to be part of these performances
Speaker 1: they called lecture demos, where students would go to public
Speaker 1: schools to demonstrate ballet. First, they had to learn the choreography.
Speaker 1: There were three couples dancing. Stephanie and her partner were
Speaker 1: in the back behind the lead couple.
Speaker 2: I wasn't very good at ballet in my mind, not yet.
Speaker 1: She remembers. That day. A talented dancer named Fernando Bojones
Speaker 1: was there sitting on the steae radio floor at the front,
Speaker 1: and then Balanjing walked in. She'd never met him before.
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, nobody looks at the people in
Speaker 2: the back. And I thought, well, he's not watching me.
Speaker 2: Valentine's not watching me, so it really doesn't matter. I
Speaker 2: can do whatever I want back here. And Fernando said, well,
Speaker 2: he didn't take his eyes off of you.
Speaker 3: For one minute.
Speaker 2: You know, by the time he saw me, I don't
Speaker 2: know how old he was. He had seen so many dancers,
Speaker 2: he'd lived such a long life. If you spark his curiosity,
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. He never wanted to be told
Speaker 2: who to like, and very often, in fact, I think
Speaker 2: he went the other way. So if the heads of
Speaker 2: the schools, who were his Russian colleagues at the time,
Speaker 2: would say we like this and this and this person,
Speaker 2: likely he would turn his head and look for somebody else.
Speaker 1: Balancing wanted good dancers, but Stephanie says he was also
Speaker 1: looking for someone unformed, someone's still.
Speaker 2: Raw, somebody who doesn't quite have it all, and he
Speaker 2: could shape them, He could form them. She doesn't quite
Speaker 2: know what she's doing, but there's something and it was
Speaker 2: very what you say, Chavian Pygmalion little bit, you know,
Speaker 2: Eliza Doolittle. There's perhaps a sculpture in that marble. He
Speaker 2: could make sixty mistakes and one was going to come
Speaker 2: out of full sculpture. And that was basically how he
Speaker 2: saw it. And he even would talk about, you know,
Speaker 2: it could be a field of grass, but one flower.
Speaker 1: Could Stephanie be that flower. Stephanie quickly learned how much
Speaker 1: the school of American Ballet was about balancing and his choreography.
Speaker 2: People were trained to hone his particular sensibilities, even his ethics,
Speaker 2: so that there would be a readiness definitely a readiness
Speaker 2: in all of us to fall right into the company,
Speaker 2: efficient and ready to be useful, immediately, ready to execute
Speaker 2: 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 balancing was.
Speaker 2: Balancing was basically the be all, end all answer to
Speaker 2: the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: That's why, as a student, Stephanie Land learned there were
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: There's a certain stringent criteria for body types and adhering
Speaker 2: to those body types. There were criteria that were very
Speaker 2: very clear and in no uncertain terms. What were the
Speaker 2: criteria generally long limbed, tall, long neck, small heads, that
Speaker 2: was understood, fair skin. I think I've even heard something
Speaker 2: like when you slice an apple open, that kind of
Speaker 2: the whiteness of the fruit. There was certainly exceptions, but
Speaker 2: that was it.
Speaker 1: It's well documented that Balancine had a preference for pale,
Speaker 1: thin dancers, for dancers he loved. He'd praised them with
Speaker 1: phrases like alabaster princess, or pale skin that reflected the light.
Speaker 1: He had a lot of opinions about dancers bodies. Here
Speaker 1: he is in a nineteen sixty three interview on WNYC
Speaker 1: talking about how he evaluates female dances, specifically girls. He
Speaker 1: starts by comparing the pros and cons of two girls' bodies.
Speaker 1: One girl is tall, It's.
Speaker 6: Very very tall, with beautiful legs and a fantastic extension.
Speaker 6: One but doesn't turn as fast and has a beautiful expression,
Speaker 6: marble face, you know, almost like angel you see.
Speaker 1: Where another girl is short.
Speaker 6: The other one would be shorter, with shorter legs, dark face.
Speaker 6: She can't jump very high and stretch her legs, but
Speaker 6: she could be very faster, and maybe her ability to express.
Speaker 1: With a face, maybe she exceeds the first in terms
Speaker 1: of artistic expression.
Speaker 6: I mean, they're all different animals.
Speaker 1: Balance, She says, you can't say who is better.
Speaker 6: It's like to say what's better a leopard or jaguar,
Speaker 6: or line or a pussycat or ada.
Speaker 1: He had animals and images for everyone. One dancer said
Speaker 1: she was a porcupine, her friend a delicious mushroom. Whether
Speaker 1: this was playful or dehumanizing. It's hard to tell, but
Speaker 1: if you made the cut, it might have been because
Speaker 1: of your idiosyncrasies, your individual style. It might be a
Speaker 1: shimmer of something balancing could mold into a timeless sculpture.
Speaker 7: When Valentine choreographs, it's like it fits like a glove,
Speaker 7: you know, It's like it's meant for you, and that's
Speaker 7: so special. It's a glove that fits.
Speaker 1: Deborah Austin entered the school as a shy thirteen year old.
Speaker 1: She'd always depended on dance to draw her out of
Speaker 1: her cocoon. Then she found herself vying for a position
Speaker 1: with Valancine's company.
Speaker 7: They told parents that most likely I would never get
Speaker 7: into the New York City Ballet because I would not
Speaker 7: 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 of ballet, the group of dancers
Speaker 1: you often see dancing behind the soloists, because she wouldn't match.
Speaker 7: You know, I would have to be a soloist if
Speaker 7: that was possible, And I'm looking at them at thirteen
Speaker 7: years old, thinking, I know I have talent, but not
Speaker 7: a soloist.
Speaker 3: You've got to beginning me.
Speaker 1: Jumping from student to soloists seemed impossible, but Deborah wanted
Speaker 1: to dance for me.
Speaker 7: It was like there was not going to be a no.
Speaker 7: I mean, I was going to achieve this on my
Speaker 7: own merit, no matter what color I was, no matter
Speaker 7: what I did. You had to sparkle something for him
Speaker 7: to be interested in you. I mean, just being there
Speaker 7: was not exactly ideal. You had to really show your worth.
Speaker 1: Balancing had been watching her, and she did get in.
Speaker 1: At age sixteen, she was the first black female dancer
Speaker 1: admitted into the company. She danced in the Core in
Speaker 1: Swan Lake, a role she'd been told she could never dance,
Speaker 1: and she danced soloist roles, one that Balanging specifically choreographed
Speaker 1: for her.
Speaker 7: He was so kind, just the way he took your
Speaker 7: hand and said, come here, dear. You know yet you
Speaker 7: were still scared of him, or at least I was.
Speaker 7: He could be tough, but he was a father figure,
Speaker 7: you know, to some of us, and we were his disciples.
Speaker 7: I think he cared more about individuality than he cared
Speaker 7: about a look. I think he cared about how you
Speaker 7: were as an artist. I really don't believe that.
Speaker 2: There was a specific type that he wanted.
Speaker 7: I mean, supposedly he wanted the skin tone to be
Speaker 7: the color of a fresh peeled apple. My skin color
Speaker 7: was not the color of a freshly peeled apple by
Speaker 7: no stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2: So there you have it.
Speaker 1: Still, the reality was that Balancine's company was almost entirely white.
Speaker 1: For the nine years Debor dance at the New York
Speaker 1: City Ballet, she was the only black female dancer there.
Speaker 2: I might have paid something.
Speaker 7: I literally made a driveway, but.
Speaker 2: I was there for nine years by myself.
Speaker 7: It might have hindered me, you know, in some ways
Speaker 7: because of what I was told when I was younger.
Speaker 7: I feel like it wanted to fit in, keep down inside.
Speaker 7: Possibly I went back into my cocoon and myself for
Speaker 7: many years in the company.
Speaker 1: Debra believes that Balanging didn't have one type in mind,
Speaker 1: that he was open to many kinds of dancers, and
Speaker 1: this is one of those areas where Balancine seems to
Speaker 1: hold opposites at the same time. Did he want dancers
Speaker 1: to conform to his aesthetics or did he value variety?
Speaker 1: What was clear was that being thin was important.
Speaker 7: I mean, I just wanted to be thinner because I
Speaker 7: knew being thinner was going to get me parts and
Speaker 7: he was going to like me more. And you want
Speaker 7: it so badly, you know, you please him. Then he
Speaker 7: used to call us all briotious because we were all
Speaker 7: like young and our bodies changed from being these skinny
Speaker 7: little things to like becoming women. But he wanted us
Speaker 7: thinner than we probably were being cubes and young girls.
Speaker 7: Now looked pictures of myself when I was younger in
Speaker 7: those photographs and I go, oh my god, they called
Speaker 7: me fat, Like how is that even possible?
Speaker 2: We were definitely indoctrinated with a certain esthetic that was
Speaker 2: known as the Balanchine body.
Speaker 1: Stephanie and Deborah overlapped at the company in one piece.
Speaker 1: They danced back to back solos while Debora spins off
Speaker 1: stage in a joyful mix of PK turns and jumps. Stephanie,
Speaker 1: almost mirroring Deborah, twirls on stage all length and speed.
Speaker 2: The preference for very long legs for thin I did
Speaker 2: not match that. In all moments. I was a little
Speaker 2: more round than the preferred body. There were times when
Speaker 2: I was taken out of ballet's because of my weight,
Speaker 2: and this was before it was politically incorrect to address it,
Speaker 2: so basically I'd just be called fat and pulled out.
Speaker 2: So I had those phases in those conflicts and self
Speaker 2: deprecation certainly, and went through them.
Speaker 1: Some see balancing as the person most responsible for changing
Speaker 1: the expectation of ballerina's bodies not just to be slim,
Speaker 1: but to be absolutely as thin as possible.
Speaker 3: If you look at photos of the late nineteenth century ballerinas,
Speaker 3: they're very, very different from the ballerinas of the nineteen
Speaker 3: twenties or the nineteen forties. In the nineteen fifties, slender
Speaker 3: dancers all had little shapes, they had waists. No one
Speaker 3: in New York City ballet in the late nineteen sixties
Speaker 3: or nineteen seventies or early eighties had a waste. They
Speaker 3: were much more straight, and that was what Maalanging apparently wanted.
Speaker 1: Historian Len Gariff points out it's hard to pin the
Speaker 1: extreme body standards all on balancing.
Speaker 3: In the nineteen sixties and seventies, extreme thinness became apparent
Speaker 3: across the fashion industry. If one picks up fashion magazines
Speaker 3: from the mid nineteen sixties on and you see Twiggy.
Speaker 3: You know this is a moment when the beauty industry
Speaker 3: is saying that thinness is really what is beautiful.
Speaker 1: Either way, Balanchine's dancer is worthier than their predecessors, and
Speaker 1: Balancing pressure dancers to lose weight. One time, he told
Speaker 1: a dancer named Heidi Vossler 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, quote, 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 Balanchine'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. Balanchine teased Gelsey for having a big head.
Speaker 1: Everyone wanted a small head like Suzanne. Gelsey 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 sternum and said, must see bones. He did not
Speaker 1: merely say eat less, she says, he repeatedly said eat nothing.
Speaker 1: I think I tried harder to please balancing than anybody.
Speaker 1: The physical cost was that it killed you to do it.
Speaker 1: An interviewer asked her once if Balanchine cared about her body.
Speaker 1: She said he cared how it looked, not how it felt.
Speaker 1: When she was too sick to dance, she writes, Balanchin
Speaker 1: gave her pills. He told her they were vitamins, but
Speaker 1: later she realized they were amphetamines. Eventually, Gelsey would depend
Speaker 1: on drugs to get through her performances, and when Balanchine
Speaker 1: thought that her head was too big for her body,
Speaker 1: something she says he pointed out to her all the time,
Speaker 1: I'm she got silicone injections and had her ear lopes trimmed.
Speaker 1: Kelsey said, I starved by day, then binged on junk
Speaker 1: food and threw up by night. I took injections of
Speaker 1: pregnant cow's urine, reputed to be a miraculous diet aid.
Speaker 1: I emptied myself with enemas and steam baths, anything to
Speaker 1: mold the body her boss wanted. You might think, based
Speaker 1: on these clearly desperate measures, that Gelsey was unappreciated, but
Speaker 1: actually no, she was a legend, one of Balanchine's favorites,
Speaker 1: frequently cast in lead roles. But these were the kinds
Speaker 1: of measures she felt she had to take. Plenty of
Speaker 1: dancers resorted to plastic surgery or other extreme measures to
Speaker 1: stay slim. The pressure was real, and they knew what
Speaker 1: was required of them.
Speaker 2: You eat, sleep, and drink ballet. It is first, It's
Speaker 2: before everything damn precedes everything, you give your all.
Speaker 1: After Balanjing noticed Stephanie, he visited her class frequently, often
Speaker 1: his eyes were on her. She couldn't understand why.
Speaker 2: I really was behind and I really was not capable
Speaker 2: of delivering the goods consistently. But when I was allowed
Speaker 2: to do whatever I wanted to do in my own
Speaker 2: particular way, that worked. And then he started coming around,
Speaker 2: and then the teachers would say, you know, go to
Speaker 2: the front of the room, and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: go to the front of the room, and I would
Speaker 2: have practical panic attacks when he would come in, and
Speaker 2: I'd hide and balancing would start, even coming into the
Speaker 2: back of the studio if I wouldn't go forward, whatever
Speaker 2: he saw, I can't say. What I do know is
Speaker 2: that I haven't over the topness. I've been told I
Speaker 2: don't do things in little ways. So I think what
Speaker 2: he saw was this person that if let loose, was
Speaker 2: going to run.
Speaker 1: Stephanie was willing to go there. When she danced, she
Speaker 1: didn't hold back. Valancine had this thing he said to
Speaker 1: his dancers all the time. People quoted again and again
Speaker 1: in the middle of rehearsal or the middle of class.
Speaker 1: If a dancer seemed not to be giving absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: He looked at them and say.
Speaker 2: What are you saving for, dear? Or are you gonna lose?
Speaker 2: You're gonna fall down. The floor's really close by, and
Speaker 2: so you fall down, you get up. We were trained
Speaker 2: for that risk all, basically risk all, And then I
Speaker 2: got in and I didn't know which way was up.
Speaker 2: I definitely loved drama. I loved heightened experiences, extremities, zigzagging.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I loved it so much as
Speaker 2: I was drawn by it to it and embodied that
Speaker 2: as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Stephanie got into the company when she was eighteen. It
Speaker 1: meant a life of extremes.
Speaker 2: It was glamorous, and then we did a tour and
Speaker 2: then suddenly I was in and I was really in.
Speaker 2: It was really like quicksand.
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 that dancers called the Ballet Belt.
Speaker 2: Because there is very little control of one's life in
Speaker 2: a company that size in terms of casting scheduling, there
Speaker 2: is a feeling of lack of control and a lack
Speaker 2: of ability to make choices for oneself. Decisions about you
Speaker 2: are being made for you, and so what happened was
Speaker 2: I would lash out by going dancing, go at clubbing,
Speaker 2: sleep with someone and staying up all night. That could
Speaker 2: be self harming in certain ways, but it was a
Speaker 2: way to work out that energy of frustration that I
Speaker 2: was not getting to choose. I think that's a normal
Speaker 2: adolescent behavior, to tell you the truth. But my escapes
Speaker 2: were really physical venting, really really physical venting. That was
Speaker 2: a coping mechanism for me.
Speaker 1: It could feel like you lived or died by what
Speaker 1: Balanchine thought of you. A dancer named Barbara Walzac wrote
Speaker 1: about it. She says, I remember talking to him once
Speaker 1: when I must have been about sixteen. He said, you know, dear,
Speaker 1: I know you someday want to dance Swan Lake. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you ever do Swan Lake, I will
Speaker 1: never come to see you, because you will be terrible.
Speaker 1: Barbara writes, I was absolutely destroyed. Still, Barbara felt she
Speaker 1: had to dance for balancing and not another ballet company.
Speaker 1: Balancine looked through you when he watched you dance. She said,
Speaker 1: he saw things no one else saw. And she says
Speaker 1: the feel of having him set the steps on you,
Speaker 1: of the music, of the counts, of the kind of
Speaker 1: kinesetic movement and quality was addictive that dancer. Barbara danced
Speaker 1: with him for fourteen years. When she was eventually let go,
Speaker 1: she says it was so wrenching she had a nervous breakdown.
Speaker 1: The reality was that even if you gave everything, you
Speaker 1: could be fired without warning and without explanation. You might
Speaker 1: hear it directly from someone other than Balanchine that he
Speaker 1: decided it was time for you to leave. You might
Speaker 1: just get a pink slip in the mail.
Speaker 2: I could be in the wings or the studio and
Speaker 2: feel like phenomenally insecure. I would go home and cry
Speaker 2: and just feel that I couldn't possibly ever measure up.
Speaker 2: But the minute I was on stage it felt like another.
Speaker 2: I'm entirely I just felt very connected, very alive. I
Speaker 2: loved being on stage that 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 Balanchine was channeling
Speaker 1: something higher and turning it into steps in front of
Speaker 1: your eyes.
Speaker 2: That's what it felt like, very frequently with Balanchine in
Speaker 2: the room. It really was. He was just like a
Speaker 2: funnel or a vessel, and.
Speaker 1: Like divine inspiration.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, and for the observer, looking effortless and very graceful.
Speaker 2: I just really feel at that I was a witness too,
Speaker 2: and a participant in some thing quite unusual and rare
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 8: Could you tell me about Balancing's philosophy, Hm, just dance, dear,
Speaker 8: don't think what does that mean?
Speaker 2: I think it means a myriad of things. If I
Speaker 2: were being narrow or defensive, it would be just so
Speaker 2: that he could get everything precisely as he wanted it,
Speaker 2: and he didn't want the mind or the personal vantage
Speaker 2: point of a dancer to interfere with what he was
Speaker 2: looking for. And yet I also see it as very zam.
Speaker 2: Don't clutter, don't get in your own way. Just dance, dear,
Speaker 2: just dance here.
Speaker 1: Balancing wanted his dancers to be in the moment completely,
Speaker 1: to live like the present was all. They had to
Speaker 1: believe that this moment was of utmost importance, and in
Speaker 1: that way dance at the highest level. Balanging was known
Speaker 1: for choreographing incredibly speedy movement in his ballets. It was
Speaker 1: something the dancers had to train for and he drilled
Speaker 1: them on it incessantly. They had to learn to move
Speaker 1: faster than they ever had before.
Speaker 2: We had to get it into our bones, into our
Speaker 2: nervous system, because it's not a brain process. It's really
Speaker 2: like a trigger finger. He likened it very often to
Speaker 2: a horse when the gun goes off at a race.
Speaker 2: You have to be out of the gate when it starts,
Speaker 2: not thinking about going out of the gate, and you
Speaker 2: have to be ready. We would have classes with pot
Speaker 2: of beret for a half hour. Oh my gosh, practicing direction, speed,
Speaker 2: weight transfer, being super super quick, and you get the
Speaker 2: thighs to get together faster. The back leg is almost
Speaker 2: the front leg before the front leg even gets a
Speaker 2: chance to start transferring weight. We could have sixty four
Speaker 2: tondus the speed of light front side end back and
Speaker 2: one empty emptree and four and then you could go
Speaker 2: and just go, and you'd have to do it. And
Speaker 2: if you're not doing it, somebody is. That's the other
Speaker 2: thing about the company. If you're not doing it, if
Speaker 2: somebody replace you.
Speaker 1: Stephanie learned that Balancine might ask you to do just
Speaker 1: about anything in class, even things that seemed impossible. So,
Speaker 1: for example, let's say you're jumping. You're doing these little
Speaker 1: jumps in place, straight up into the air, switching your
Speaker 1: feet from front to back and back to front. That's
Speaker 1: called a changem. Then you start jumping higher and you
Speaker 1: start beating your feet together while you're in the air.
Speaker 1: That's an unto shakat. Then you add more beats, and
Speaker 1: at chassis all of us is normal. Usually you'd start
Speaker 1: these jumps by bending your knees a little what's called
Speaker 1: a plier, a small knee bend.
Speaker 2: Usually you have a small, little one, and you practice
Speaker 2: your little beats and you land. But he's famous for
Speaker 2: giving what we call a grand plier and to entre chassis,
Speaker 2: and that's a big knee bend. Okay, what we call
Speaker 2: fifth position.
Speaker 1: Instead of bending your knees a little, you crouch next
Speaker 1: to the floor. In fifth position in a grand plier,
Speaker 1: your legs are flattened to the sides and you're balancing
Speaker 1: on the balls of your feet. And from that almost torturous,
Speaker 1: thigh burning position, you're supposed to jump all the way
Speaker 1: up into the.
Speaker 2: Air to three beats.
Speaker 1: Beating your feet together while you're in the air and landing.
Speaker 2: He would do it out of these extreme positions just
Speaker 2: to see even if you had the volition to do it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: It was also a test of are you a patriot?
Speaker 2: Are you a citizen? Are you willing to do these
Speaker 2: unheard of things? Are you willing to do whatever I
Speaker 2: ask you to do? Set yourself beyond the margins of
Speaker 2: safety and it might actually be possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, when I'm explaining to people that were not exposed
Speaker 2: to this in that particular culture, I laugh at my
Speaker 2: former self because not only would you want to demonstrate
Speaker 2: something when he asked for it, you would show that
Speaker 2: you were excited about showing that you were showing you're
Speaker 2: showing your fervor. Kind of exactly, you were demonstrating your fervor.
Speaker 2: It was a layer on layer un layer of energy, fervor, volition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you have to demonstrate your passion for
Speaker 1: the art and your reverence for it.
Speaker 2: Just being there is not enough. You have to really
Speaker 2: amplify it to let it be known in the visible world.
Speaker 2: He would request things that could be almost undoable, and
Speaker 2: most of it was really challenging our willingness to risk.
Speaker 2: It was really about risk and passing through any kind
Speaker 2: of imagined limitations or real limitations, doing the impossible.
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: To many in the audience, it was balanging who was
Speaker 1: the star.
Speaker 2: He stood in the wings every single performance. He was
Speaker 2: always in the front wing, watching and waiting to be
Speaker 2: either surprised, entertained, intrigued or otherwise I suppose. But he
Speaker 2: was always in the wings. So we were always not
Speaker 2: only literally on our toes, but we were always aware
Speaker 2: of his part in our lives and his part in
Speaker 2: your lives being what exactly ever present? Yeah, ever observing
Speaker 2: ever present, and also realizing that we were we were
Speaker 2: taking part in something that was his creation, that was
Speaker 2: run by his esthetic, and that the criteria was to
Speaker 2: be met to the absolute best of our ability. In
Speaker 2: all moments, He was God in the theater. And in fact,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I told you that when the
Speaker 2: theater apparently was built, you know, we only had windows
Speaker 2: and very little slipper windows on the fourth floor. In
Speaker 2: the offices. There are no windows otherwise because basically we
Speaker 2: don't need windows because the outside world doesn't matter. We
Speaker 2: are not part of the outside world. Wow, it's separate
Speaker 2: from us, and we are removed from it. And once
Speaker 2: you go downstairs into the theater, enter through the stage entrance,
Speaker 2: and go into the studios, the dressing rooms in the stage,
Speaker 2: there is no need for the outside world because we
Speaker 2: are removed from it and apart from it, and in
Speaker 2: our own unique sphere, we had our own universe.
Speaker 1: The Turning is the production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's written and produced by Alan Lance Lesser and Me.
Speaker 1: Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by James Trout. Jessica Krisa is our Assistant producer. Andrea
Speaker 1: Assuage is our digital producer, fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Alpert at
Speaker 1: Rococo Punch and Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etour at I
Speaker 1: Hard Podcasts. For photos and more details on the series,
Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can
Speaker 1: reach out via email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.