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Straight from the heart: Gelsey Kirkland looks back ... and ahead.

Article Excerpt
Last May, after a 13-year absence, Gelsey Kirkland was back at American Ballet Theatre. Kirkland, a dance legend who has been out of the limelight for nearly 20 years, came to New York from her home in Melbourne, Australia, at the invitation of John Meehan, artistic director of ABT's Studio Company. During her three-week stay she taught classes for ABT's Studio Company and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, and coached various dancers in the main company. Even walking casually through the halls of 890 Broadway where ABT is headquartered, wearing an oversized shirt, her hair untamed around her face, the petite Kirkland (who still looks like she could perform) causes a flurry of excitement. In the classroom, her simplest gestures tell entire stories.

During her stage career-at New York City Ballet, ABT, and finally The Royal Ballet--Kirkland was famous for her ability to bring audiences to their knees. Her dancing combined a tender, almost childlike innocence with strength, Speed, musicality, and soul. Her portrayals in ballets like Don Quixote, Giselle, The Leaves Are Fading, and Theme and Variations were exquisite. And thanks to video, young dancers are still watching her perform. Baryshnikov's widely aired production of The Nutcracker, in which she melts into the role of Clara, is perhaps the most well known.

Sadly, in 1984, substance abuse and burnout halted Kirkland's stage career. Shortly thereafter she co-authored Dancing on My Grave (with her first husband, Greg Lawrence), a tell-all book that was also full of insights about the artistic challenges of ballet. Critics who thought dancers should be "seen and not heard" slammed her in the press for questioning Balanchine's sovereignty and insulting her famous colleagues. Seen as a traitor, she was shunned by many in the dance scene. Three years later, in The Shape of Love, she chronicled her triumphant return to the stage, dancing Romeo and Juliet and The Sleeping Beauty with Anthony Dowell at The Royal Ballet. It was during this period that she discovered teaching.

Today, Kirkland, 52, teaches in Melbourne and conducts master classes in the United States with her husband Michael Chernov, a theater director and former actor and dancer. Through her interest in the Vaganova teaching method, she has studied with Robert Ray at the Victorian College of the Arts in Australia...

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