Ecstasy as Style in Ballet
By BarbaraAnne
When I was 19, I told my mother, “Oh yes, I will be very well taken care of at Karen’s home in Brewster!” Of course, Karen, Debbie, Mamie, and I rushed to JFK so we could board a plane to London to see this: Gelsey Kirkland and Anthony Dowell dance Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Ballet.
— Of course —
During the Ballet Renaissance of the 1970s and ’80s, Baryshnikov and Makarova defected to American Ballet Theatre. Suzanne Farrell came back to Balanchine from Béjart and found Peter Martins at the New York City Ballet. Márcia Haydée made the Stuttgart Ballet a miracle. The Bolshoi and Kirov came to New York. It was an incredible time. The greatest Juliet was Gelsey Kirkland.
Consciousness is a form of sanity. When Gelsey wilfully, forcefully abandoned it, her movements came from a trance. She surrendered to ecstasy. Years of training kept her body in position when she lost self-awareness.
There are very few artists who can do this in any medium. A sense of style enables them to carry ecstacy with grace. For those precious moments on stage, Gelsey transported her audience and convinced everyone who saw her to abandon themselves.
Filed under: Style
2 Responses to Ecstasy as Style in Ballet
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+Susan Maxwell Schmidt
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Loosely wrapped, creative, nocturnal, eternally blue, reclusive, eccentric, obsessive perfectionist... in other words, an artist.
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Oh, I *adore* Gelsey Kirkland! Have you read her autobiography Dancing on My Grave
? I read it years ago and enjoyed it so much it’s one of the few “read” books that still sits on my bookshelf. I never had the opportunity to see her dance live, but I have seen Baryshnikov dance twice. He was the epitome of male beauty when he danced. And when he didn’t, LOL!
I did read it. It talked about drug use in the classical ballet world. She tore it open, as only she had the courage to do. She probably saved lives with that book. Yes, Misha was, however…. There was Ivan Nagy, who walked from upstage right to downstage left in the second act of Giselle so flawlessly that the bottom of the black velvet cape never stopped moving forward on the floor. Every other premier danseur draped the cape over his shoulder. Only Nagy walked the walk. And of course, the other man who took over my mind was, and is, Peter Martins. NO ONE could stand there at the end of Apollo, perfectly still as the sun set, with the presence he had. No one before him, no one since. I can never see that ballet again, unless it is on tape and a performance he is doing.