On Technique

18. Sally Streets Nichols

183 Sally Streets Nichols “. . . joy in class is learning how to move . . .” Sally Streets Nichols performed with the New York City Ballet and Oakland Ballet. My start in ballet came after a childhood illness when some physical activity was recommended and dance was one of the choices. So I started with tap and baton, but was drawn to ballet at the studio of Dorothy Pring, located in Berkeley, who was once a student of Theodore Kosloff. From her, I learned to respect ballet as an art form with rich history and lore. I studied with her until I was 14 and then switched to Tatiana Svetlanova at the Russian Center in San Francisco. She had been one of Margot Fonteyn’s early teachers in Shanghai. For me, this was a period of intense immersion in all things ballet. Tatiana gave me private lessons and choreographed story ballets for me. Sally Streets Nichols. Photo by Ashraf Habibullah. 184 On Technique During this period, I attended the Anna Head School for girls in Berkeley, which accommodated my ballet class schedule requiring travel to San Francisco. From Svetlanova, I not only learned technique but gained an appreciation of expressive projection together with a strong sense of performance quality. My start in professional performing was sparked by Eva Mendel, one of my classmates at Anna Head’s, who was from Bogota, Colombia. Her father was an impresario for the arts, and he offered to arrange an audition for me with Mia Slavenska in New York. The audition was successful, and she accepted me into her company, consisting of a small group of four men and four women, plus Mia and her partner. Mia was a marvelous dancer with great technique, especially balance. I was in awe of Mia and her dancers, and my start was shaky, but with Mia’s help I quickly overcame my jitters. She would put me onstage time after time, and all fears ultimately disappeared. Slavenska was an advocate of the Cecchetti system, which at first I found difficult to incorporate into my past training. I soon recognized its value and benefited from it. Mia had unique ideas about things like costumes. In performance, we wore costumes without straps, and she herself sometimes went without ribbons on her pointe shoes—she just stuck them on using spirit gum. The company eventually enlarged to 16 dancers (8 of each gender) with Frederic Franklin and Alexandra Danilova also joining. It was very exciting to be part of such a company. However, when the company was scheduled to tour Japan, several dancers were left behind, including me. I was quite disappointed and decided to audition for the New York City Ballet. The audition went well, and it turned out they needed someone at the time to replace a corps member. I joined the company and performed in the corps for three or four years. After joining NYCB, I was first advised by the ballet mistress, Vida Brown, that Mr. B wanted me to lose some weight (really only about five pounds). His teaching was full of interesting images. For example, his description of frappés was “toward the floor— kill a bug.” I was there for the original Nutcracker, and it was an exciting time. Balanchine was very flexible and spontaneous in creating steps. He didn’t force something to work. He’d let it evolve until it looked right. I don’t Sally Streets Nichols taken in 1972 during her second performing career. Photo by Edward M. Powell. 186 On Technique believe he had specific steps planned, but just invented them on the spot. He could do this because he knew the music so well. I was fortunate to go with NYCB on two tours to Europe. However, I fell ill on the first one and went home to California to recoup. Many years later, when taking company class with my daughter, Kyra Nichols, who was then a company member, Balanchine remembered me as the girl who had to go home during a tour. The second tour was successful, and by the time I left NYCB, I had moved up to demi-soloist roles and had the good fortune of gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of Balanchine’s teaching technique and choreography. I came home on a break in March 1955 and dated an aspiring university professor, who lived next door to my parents. We fell in love and...