Perspective: Bringing Suzanne Farrell back into the New York City Ballet studios is a step in the right direction
Suzanne Farrell in rehearsal with Natalia Magnicaballi and Michael Cook at the Kennedy Center, before the Suzanne Farrell Ballet was disbanded. By Sarah L. Kaufman Sarah L.
The move to bring back Farrell is pragmatically, artistically and morally right. The home that she helped build is finally opening its doors. New York City Ballet’s rehearsal studios are the natural place for her, where she can groom dancers in the roles she knew best as the company’s prima ballerina and Balanchine’s muse. Yet, for more than a quarter century, she hasn’t been welcome there.
That dismissal, following pointed comments she made in the New Yorker about her Balanchine expertise and her frustrations at not being able to do more for the company, fit a pattern. Few of the principal dancers who knew Balanchine best continued on as coaches or teachers under Martins, who, after Balanchine’s death in 1983, directed the company with Jerome Robbins and took over sole leadership in 1990.
Why is that preposterous? I asked. “What, I’m going to go to Russia and spend three weeks coaching ‘Violin Concerto’ just because I was one of the originals?” he said. “There are people who can do that just as well as I. And I’m busy . . . I’m busy like these [other] people are busy. I’m running a place here. Balanchine is now spread out all over the world. There can’t just be one person. There are many people who can do this.
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