Suzanne Farrell was the purest paradigm of the Balanchine dancer. The great choreographer created one masterpiece after another for her. During her illustrious career with the New York City Ballet, she danced 150 roles in over 2,000 performances. In the course of their work together, Farrell and “Mr. B” transformed the very face of dance, experimenting and inventing, enlarging the scale and altering the speed and structures of ballet.
I spoke with Suzanne Farrell by email for this interview. I was interested in exploring those areas where dance and poetry overlap. With eloquent speech, she allowed me to enter “the state of balletic grace” which is, she said, “unlike anything else in the world.”
EF: Where there was empty space, how did George Balanchine fill it with pure movement, deep emotion, and mystery? How did the great choreographer go about his work?
SF: When Mr. B started working on a new ballet for me, there would often be no one in the room except the pianist, George, and myself. He would show me a little something and I would try to imitate or decode what he indicated. He would only indicate, never command, and then I would try.
Choreography is not born as choreography. It grows out of a suggestion or movement indication and then it gets shaped into the dance. Sometimes I would make a mistake and that might become a part of the choreography–not that every mistake can be put to music and become beautiful, but he made me see life differently. I learned to remain open to chance, the spontaneous, the moment.
In his later years, something would just spill out of his body. He could rarely duplicate it, so I had to see precisely what he wanted the first time, but that came over years of being soulmates.
EF: When you speak of mistakes, I think of Balanchine’s first great masterpiece, Serenade, when one of the dancers fell down while exiting and he included that fall in the ballet. I have often wondered how he created his heart-stopping lifts that fill me with so much emotion. In one of his last masterpieces, Davidsbündlertänze, he created a lift for you and your wonderful partner, Jacques d’Amboise, that made people in the audience gasp. How did that come about?
SF: Jacques was in the later stage of his career and almost retiring. George said, “Jacques, maybe you can lift Suzanne,” and Jacques said, “Oh, sorry, Mr. B, I’ve got bursitis in my shoulder,” and George said, “Okay, then maybe you can kneel and Suzanne can do something around you and support herself while you’re on your knee,” and Jacques said, “Sorry, George, I’ve got a bad knee.” Every time Mr. B tried to give us something, there were obstacles. Eventually, George came up with a unique kind of lift when Jacques carries me offstage. I support myself partly, with one arm over Jacques’s shoulder and the weight is distributed in a different way. It would not have been devised for a healthy body. It was original because sometimes life forces you to be original, although it won’t work if you contrive to be original.
EF: Imagery is vital in the work of a poet and the imagery in a Balanchine ballet is astounding. In the majestic Chaconne, for example, you swim through the air. How did Balanchine get across his notions of imagery to the dancers? Did he demonstrate, tell stories, use metaphors or similes?
SF: I remember my first rehearsal for Meditation. It was the very first ballet Mr. B did for me. I was only 18. He didn’t mention any storyline. He described only what he wanted physically. My entrance from stage right was a mere two steps from the wing and then two steps up on pointe and then stay on pointe for several counts. It was to be as if I were parting an invisible curtain, parting clouds, with my arms out to the side. “You just hold on to the air, when you’re up there [on pointe],” he said. It sounded so simple, and I tried to envision what he wanted, but every time I stepped up there I’d teeter and wobble and keel over. Finally, he said, “Well, we can’t stay here forever. Let’s pretend you’re already in and take it from there.”
EF: I’m sure you felt badly at the time, but his remark amuses me.
SF: I’m happy to say that for as much trouble as I had that first day, I never wobbled again in performance.
EF: I understand that Balanchine did not want you to take piano lessons, afraid that it would interfere with your famed musicality, your natural gift for dance. You have coached hundreds of dancers, you have directed your own, acclaimed dance company, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, you continue to teach. Your work with dancers is revered. How do you bring out the best in dancers, without intimidating them?
SF: It depends on the student. Every dancer is individual to me. It’s up to me to find out what they need to have their dancing be their own individual thumbprint. There are many layers that make up a person, many possibilities within us, and sometimes I have to strip some of those layers away, those preconceived, protective notions, so that the individual dancer can blossom.
I handle dancers with care, in the right environment, without destroying something that they might bring to their roles. This requires trust and honesty alongside experimentation. I don’t consistently correct my dancers. They usually know when they’ve made a mistake and if you continually correct them, they feel limited and fear any movement that has not been sanctioned. I usually withhold comments until there is a cluster of things that have started to chip away at the work process, the performance, or the rehearsal. I also want to wait to see how they are going to develop their rehearsal, because it’s not always immediately apparent.
I believe that the more you reveal of yourself to an audience, the more mysterious you become. The less you reveal, the less interesting you are. Every night, I put my life out there on the stage in front of everyone. I could not not give everything. People said, “She is so mysterious.” But if you work at being mysterious, it just comes off as disingenuous. I want to help them in this process.
Dancers don’t use anything other than who they are. We are not machines where the volume can be turned up. We are our own technology, our own instruments. We have to do it all visually and energetically. I say to my dancers, “Ladies and gentlemen, please turn up the volume in your movement, turn up the technicolor in your eyes.” There will be days when you cannot balance as long or you don’t turn as many times or you cannot jump as high. I want to teach my dancers to have a facility to use another vocabulary, just like a writer searches for a better word. We should have that kind of thesaurus in our technique, the ability to delve deeper into our dance voice. It’s more visceral, more vulnerable. It’s where music and space come into play. You can express the ballet technically well, but you must also express it poetically.
EF: You are celebrated all over the world. You have won every prestigious award there is to win. If there were a Nobel Prize for Dance, you would be the winner. Many poets work without this kind of recognition. They may deal with disappointment and self-doubt. Does fame have meaning for you or is it something remote from the work? Do you counsel your dancers for a life in the arts?
SF: If you choose to dance, you should have this wonderful feeling unlike anything else in life: the state of balletic grace. I caution dancers not to focus on being a star or to demand the star treatment. I want them to remember why they wanted to be a dancer. I want to restore for them the purity of the art form, the excitement of dancing.
You know, as you become experienced and you perfect the technique, you have to remain vulnerable and not lose that wonderful innocence, that freshness. I always loved to move to beautiful music. As a child, I danced in our living room, but would stop if anyone watched. It wasn’t the applause or the adulation. I would have been happy dancing, even if no one saw me. I needed to dance; I only dreamed of being a ballerina. This means that I am never bored or unhappy with dance. I have had unhappiness in my life, but dance never betrayed me. There should always be happiness and comfort in responding to music. Good theater should always send people away feeling changed. The arts are the hospitals for our souls. I have said this many times before: Life is hard, it is meant to be a test, but while you’re studying for that test, isn’t it nice to be dancing.
EF: With time, so many dances become diminished or distorted. Styles change, dancers change, audiences change. How do you hold on to great dance, the most ephemeral of all the arts?
SF: The words of a great poem are written down. They don’t change, but choreography is subjected to many variables. Our medium is humanness. The human body is constantly changing. It alters with time, emotion, humidity, with health. It has lived one day longer. You should never assume that a human body will be predictable. If Balanchine ballets retain his integrity, his musicality, his energy, spirit, and lifelong philosophy, I believe that the right environment will hold them together. We can’t recapture those past days, but I want to bring that same sense of urgency and importance to the time we’re living in.
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Emily Fragos is the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize from the Library of Congress, and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. She is the author of four acclaimed books of poetry. The newest, Unrest (Sheep Meadow Press), is due out in November. She is also the editor of seven poetry anthologies for The Everyman’s Pocket Library: Music’s Spell, Art & Artists, The Great Cat, The Dance, The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Poems of Gratitude, and Poems of Paris. Fragos has written numerous articles on music and dance and has taught at Columbia, Yale, and NYU.