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

Summary

301 Summary Una and I feel we owe a great debt of gratitude to George Balanchine. We hope that he will not be dissatisfied with our efforts to make his teaching more accessible to the dance world. I approach this aspect of Balanchine’s teachings with some trepidation, because it can easily be misunderstood. There is a tendency to think that one is doing his work correctly by hitting each movement squarely, each count exactly on the beat, with great energy. But that is missing the very essence of how he approached the quality of each step—the perfume, one might say. As I have mentioned, Balanchine reminded us that we don’t speak in monotone. We raise and lower our voices, stress words, and change tempo, and this is exactly how we should move. It is the phrase within the phrase, starting with the wrapping of the foot around the ankle and lifting into tendu (and then “show”) and the fondue (“stay”) as if having a photo taken. The développé appearing to move as if in outer space. The foot arriving at the apex and then continuing into an equally outstretched descent. His timing for glissade assemblé (“hover hold”) onto the air and the inhale on sous-sus and exhale on plié before entrechat six are all examples of how Balanchine shaded movement. I have covered all of this in the classwork, but it is important enough to mention again. This is what constitutes the style, but it is a pure, honest, and totally musical style. It remains true to the logical musical quality inherent in the given steps. There must be no mannerisms, unnecessary embellishments, or personal refinement. It is simply the most logical way to present a given movement to the audience. It is how movement becomes theater and how it affects the audience. He strips the movement down to its essence and breathes life into it by allowing for the nuance that is inherent in it. So, in breaking down each step, having it done extremely slowly or too fast, in forcing us to know exactly how each step was to be done, he was freeing us to dance his choreography and not perform the steps in a dry, mechanical way. He was much too much a musician. After perfecting the movement, he would send his dancers onto the stage, saying, “Now surprise me.” But without him here to monitor us and say, “No, dear, wrong,” we must be very careful and keep going back to perfecting each tendu and then letting the music flow into our bodies and movement. 302 / Balanchine the Teacher, Part 2 A thread runs through Balanchine’s teaching that pertains not only to the innovations he made in technique but also to musicality and timing. The dancer was another musician. But instead of creating sound, the dancer became visible sound. Each and every dancer is just as important as each and every musician in creating the magic of sound and movement. What we take for granted as part of our technique did not exist before the 1950s. Before Balanchine’s time, the glissade did not end with both feet simultaneously. The jeté battu and assemblé with legs held together out to the side, the preparations for steps and the speed and breadth of movement were what Balanchine added to classical ballet. The intricate partnering in pas de deux and the use of the vibrato that underlies the melody are part of Balanchine’s legacy to us. Balanchine referred to himself as a craftsman. “Sculptors use wood or marble and chisels. I use dancers and steps.” We were the dancers on whom Balanchine crafted the New York City Ballet. In her autobiography, Alexandra Danilova said that when Balanchine started choreographing for Diaghilev , she and her generation were the pioneers, the first to dance his new and difficult choreography. We in the 1950s were pioneers, too. Balanchine taught us what future dancers could and would do. He taught us to move in ways we never dreamed possible, to hear music as no one had heard it before, and to feel the music coursing through our bodies. We want very much for these teachings to be the stepping-stones for future generations of dancers and choreographers. Balanchine said, “When I go, it goes.” Because choreography and dance are passed from one generation to another in an oral tradition, I hope that this tradition will continue to keep Balanchine’s work alive and intact...