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Balanchine: through the eyes of choreographers now.

Article Excerpt
Choreographers the world over have been touched by Balanchine's genius. Last fall DANCE MAGAZINE interviewed contemporary choreographers about their responses to his work, both positive and negative. Their candid, thoughtful, and sometimes surprising answers reveal how his influence reaches into the present.

Peter Martins

Artistic Director and Ballet Master in Chief, New York City Ballet

WHEN I FIRST learned Apollo with the Royal Danish Ballet in the spring of 1967, it didn't mean anything to me. It was just another ballet, another bunch of steps: do this, do that, do this, and I did it. A few months later, Balanchine's company was on tour and needed someone to replace an injured Jacques d'Amboise--within forty-eight hours! I went to Edinburgh and met Balanchine. He took his jacket off, rolled up his sleeves, and said, "I will now teach you the ballet, dear." He took the ballet apart and we spent an entire afternoon--he, Suzanne [Farrell], and I.

As I got acquainted with him and his works, I could not believe the scope of his oeuvre. He seemed to be able to do anything. It was a revelation for a 20-year-old kid in a little town like Copenhagen who had been bored with ballet. This man appeared, and I fell in love with ballet.

Balanchine's work was like a guide or a textbook. The way he dealt with the music fascinated me and fostered my interest in choreography. He never choreographed the melodic line. He choreographed to the underlying rhythm, to the things in the music that you almost couldn't hear. That was my first discovery. Then he broke up the meter, which nobody else did. If the music was in 4, he might do a step in 3. He would do 7s when the music was in 8s. He'd be all over the place, but it came out in the end.

I don't ever want to depart from Balanchine's vision. If I do, that's fine, or if I don't, that's fine too. I've always maintained that if you try to be unique, it ain't gonna happen.

My favorite ballet? Apollo is right up there. Another is Serenade. When I rehearse these ballets I'm supposed to tell people what to do. Sometimes I sit in front of the rehearsal and I say nothing. I'm in awe.

Superficially there have been times when I have looked at parts of a ballet and said to myself, "C'mon George, you've done this; don't bring out that old bag of tricks." And yet, when I see him doing it, there's something absolutely endearing about it. He trusted his language. It's like using the same words and sentences in another book.

The greatest thing about Balanchine, in my view, is that when the music was less strong or vital, when there was a weak passage, he came up with a great step. It was like he was saying, "OK, Igor, this is not as great as your past passage; I'll fix it." And vice versa: when there was some fabulous passage in the music that was like, "whoa!"--you could hear it and sing it--he eased off. He would say, "OK, I don't have to do a great step here; the music will carry it."

Eliot Feld

Choreographer

MY FIRST Balanchine ballet was The Nutcracker,...

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