Esprit de corps - recollections of ballet dancer Barbara Walczak - 50th anniversary of New York City Ballet Company - Cover Story - Interview

Dance Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Marian Horosko

As part of its fiftieth-anniversary celebration, New York City Ballet will hold an alumni reunion on November 22, 1998. More than 1,000 former members have been invited to return as guests for that one night. At the gala opening of the 1998-99 winter season November 24, NYCB will repeat its first program of October 11, 1948: Balanchine's Concerto Barocco, Orpheus, and Symphony in C. Barbara Walczak, a former NYCB member, recalls the origins of the company in an interview with Dance Magazine associate editor for education, Marian Horosko, a former member of NYCB.

Ballet Society. We danced for two years wherever we could find space--Central High School of Needle Trades, Hunter College, City Center. The first program on November 20, 1946, included Ravel's L'Enfant et les sortileges, an opera Mr. B--Balanchine preferred that his company call him by that name--had staged in 1925 for Diaghilev, and the world premiere of The Four Temperaments, set to Paul Hindemith. We had some remarkable performers: Lew Christensen, Beatrice Tompkins, Gisella Caccialanza, Mary Ellen Moylan, Fred Danieli, Todd Bolender, William Dollar, among other seasoned dancers from Ballet Russe. Nicholas Kopeikine was our pianist for performances and rehearsals. Squinting through his cigarette smoke, he could sight-read a complex new score by Stravinsky as if it were a familiar piece, his pudgy hands flat on the keyboard of an upright piano. He helped us understand sounds that became the orchestra.

The seasons were short and the classes long. Mr. B used company classes to work on a choreographic idea, a way or style of doing a step, as he would do the rest of his life. The class material was whatever he wanted to develop at the moment. Traditional classes were taught at the School of American Ballet, but Mr. B also had a class for special people, such as Maria Tallchief, Tanaquil LeClercq, Nicholas Magallanes, Francisco Moncion, Herbert Bliss, and a few others. His classes were never paced or typical. We had SAB for that. Between ballet seasons Balanchine was always busy creating dances for the New York City Opera, for Broadway, or for films, and he used some of the company in these productions.

Our Ballet Society repertory increased. In the two years before we opened at City Center, the programs would include Stravinsky's Renard, Haieff's Divertimento, Bizet's Symphony in C, Mozart's Symphonie Concertante, Rieti's The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, (based upon a carnival song by Lorenzo de' Medici), and Stravinsky's Elegie and Orpheus. As the repertory grew, we grew to thirty dancers.

Balanchine always remembered his first impression of a dancer. Years later, he said to me: "You had these fuzzy, gray wool tights and you looked awful." My mother had made those tights. He didn't use me in the ballets for a while, then put me in Symphonie Concertante. I had to make a choice. I needed two more credits to finish high school, but the company had started to work more often so I chose to stay with the company, do all the rehearsals and performances, and not finish school. I wanted to dance, although I knew from the beginning that I would not be one of his favorites. When I was sixteen, Mr. B called me into his office at City Center and said, "You know, dear, I know you someday want to dance Swan Lake, but, you know, if you ever do Swan Lake I will never come to see you, because you will be terrible." I was absolutely destroyed. But he gave me roles to do and I eventually became a soloist. He never fired anyone. He just let them fade away or kept them on the payroll until they left.

New York City Ballet: Morton Baum, the administrator of the City Center Theater, said that it was Orpheus, done by Ballet Society, that had made him decide to invite us to be the theater's resident ballet company, the New York City Ballet. For our company debut on October 11, 1948, we were to dance Concerto Barocco (taught us by Marie-Jeanne), Orpheus, and Symphony in C. There was no money for publicity or advertising. We put up posters announcing the performances throughout the city. Betty Cage, our administrator, had her own goals and agenda, just like Mr. B, but both of them were quiet and low-key, without hysterics or panic. "We'll-get-there-when-we-get-there" was their attitude. They both had faith in the company and cared a great deal about the dancers and appreciated what they had endured to make it all happen. Mr. B never permitted one-night engagements, unlike other companies that had to ride on buses by day and dance at night. We always performed at least three nights everywhere and never on a travel day. Sol Hurok, the impresario, wanted to take over the management of the company, but Mr. B would not have it. He knew it would be an exploitation of the dancers. Despite the fact that we always needed money very badly, he never sacrificed us in any way. Betty always arranged good travel conditions and found decent hotels near the theaters, and the stages where we danced were measured by Mr. B to hold a Swan Lake diagonal comfortably for all of us. We would do anything for either of them.