"To me, Balanchine is the ultimate of choreographers," says Ib Andersen, artistic director of Ballet Arizona, "just like Bach is the ultimate in music. I don't know how you explain a talent like that."
Ballet Arizona will present two programs of Balanchine this week June 1-4 at Symphony Hall in Phoenix, with six of the master's classic dances.
Andersen danced with the New York City Ballet for 10 years, his first three under Balanchine before the choreographer's death in 1983. Andersen was one of the company's principal dancers.
"I was performing in New York with the Royal Danish Ballet and people from the New York City Ballet came to see," he says. "Some auditioning in London was arranged and I went over there and took class and he saw me for five minutes and I talked to him for about one minute. And that was him. He was a man of few words. And I joined the company the next spring."
Work with Balanchine was not like work anywhere else. It was eight performances a week during a two-phase season: nine weeks in spring and 14 weeks in winter.
"In Denmark, it was a 10-month season but two or three ballets a week. The amount of ballets was overwhelming in New York. I learned something like 30 ballets in the first nine weeks I was there."
When you have that many ballets, in rehearsal in eight different studios at a time, Balanchine couldn't be in all of them all the time, but even in his 70s, he would rehearse all day.
"And he would stand in the wings every time and watch the performances, every night for all the ballets. He was there from morning to night."
FOUR WIVES, FOUR-HUNDRED DANCES
Balanchine was born in Russia in 1904, started piano at 5 and dance at 9; by 10, he was dancing professionally.
He was a marital prodigy, too. He married the first of his four wives, dancer Tamara Geva, when he was 17 and she was 14. None of the marriages lasted. All of them were to his star dancers - Vera Zorina, Maria Tallchief, Tanaquil LeClerq. And he also lived with another - Alexandra Danilova - and had several well-publicized affairs.
"Woman is the goddess, the poetess, the muse," he once said.
In all, Balanchine choreographed more than 400 dances. Seventy or so are still in active repertoire and danced by companies around the world.
"That's an enormous amount," Andersen says. "No other choreographer even comes close."
'LET DANCE BE THE STAR'
The one "marriage" that lasted longer than all the others was his artistic collaboration with composer Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky brought modernism to the concert hall; Balanchine brought it to ballet.
Classic 19th-century dance tended to tell stories - The Nutcracker, Coppelia, Swan Lake - but Balanchine felt that it wasn't the story that counted, but the dance. The abstract dance.
"Let dance be the star of the show," he once told an interviewer.
Balanchine's dance is distinct.
"Although Balanchine's dances are challenging and difficult for the dancer, they're not awkward," says Ben Huys, balletmaster at Ballet Arizona, who danced with the New York City Ballet from 1986 to 1995 and absorbed the Balanchine tradition.
"They fall on the feet like Chopin falls on the hands of a pianist. It's hard to get injured in a Balanchine ballet."
His ballets also move faster than most and draw more from the corps, whose members don't just stand around behind the principals.
"Everyone gets to dance and you notice everybody," Huys says. "The corps is more than wallpaper.
"The dancers are really working. You can't fake it. When you perform one of Balanchine's ballets, you feel like you've done something, you are gratified and fulfilled. It's a good plate of meat."
Balanchine, the son of a composer, studied music and composition before becoming a choreographer, so the music is more important than in many others' work.
'DEEPER LEVEL'
"When he uses a piece of music, the music becomes more than what it was before he touched it," Andersen says.
"While other choreographers would be paint-by-the-numbers, his way of using the music is at a much deeper level. He enhances what the music is, but not note for note. He is creating his own kind of music but is more than the music."
And Stravinsky, with his modern music, was the perfect partner. Like Balanchine's steps, his music was clear, astringent, forceful, direct.
Two of this week's ballets are danced to music by Stravinsky, the early-period Apollo (1928) and the late-period Agon (1957).
"If I have one favorite ballet - maybe it is because I danced this for so many years - it would be Apollo," Andersen says. "It's the perfect ballet."
It's about Apollo being born and introduced to three of the muses, and at the end, he's ready to be a god.
"The music is truly sublime. It sounds simple, but it's extremely difficult to play well," Andersen says. "Harder than Mozart."
Agon is as spiky as Apollo is smooth. Set to a 12-tone piece by Stravinsky, it's a ballet "like no other," Andersen says.
"That's the thing with him. Even though some of the dances are very old, none of them is dated. They look like they've been done yesterday."
Two of the dances are set to music by Tchaikovsky, one by Mozart and the last to music by Vincenzo Bellini.
"I'm really excited about this program," Andersen says. "All six of these ballets. They don't come any better. Period." -- www.balletaz.org
Posted January 5th, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
