Balanchine the Teacher: Fundamentals That Shaped the First Generation of New York City Ballet Dancers

2.1. In the Beginning

228 2.1 In the Beginning Barbara “Basia” Walczak and I were students at the School of American Ballet when Balanchine needed dancers to form his company, and we will always remember how lucky we were to be in the right place at the right time. It was wonderful to be working with Balanchine during the early years when he was creating so many ballets. In order to shape his dancers so that we could perform his choreography in the way he desired, Balanchine started to train us in his style. We had come from different schools, and we needed to be unified. Balanchine gave two-hour classes that were designed to help us achieve “perfection,” as the advanced classes at the Kirov school were called. Balanchine’s intention was to speed up our development because he needed an instant company. The exercises that he devised are intended to improve technique and style. They are not a syllabus for systematic teaching. We spent much time on arm and hand movements coordinated with épaulement, as well as exercises for feet and legs. Balanchine always reminded us to make beautiful movements, not to become “zombies” due to concentration. Gesture was a word he used often. “Make a beautiful gesture with your leg. Show the audience your beautiful foot. ‘Here is my beautiful foot.’” The exercises were difficult, strenuous, and unpleasant to do. They require extreme effort and concentration in order to produce results. These classes are training in specific movements and in musicality. They do not progress in the usual order of exercises in classes intended for the practice of steps and combinations. Balanchine accelerated the process of developing us as performers by encouraging us to perfect execution of each simple exercise. There were never any complex combinations. During this period of training we were already performing in Ballet Society , the embryo company that became the New York City Ballet in October 1948. Balanchine was successful in his method, which resulted in an invitation for the New York City Ballet to perform in London in 1950, after little more than two years of intensive work. Having achieved his immediate goal, he gradually changed his classes. As he was able to recruit better trained dancers from the School of American Ballet, his classes became shorter but no less difficult. His combinations consist of only two or three steps and are always challenging. We who were his pupils in the early years became teachers, and with this book we hope to pass on the knowledge we gained from Balanchine, our Master. In the Beginning / 229 ...