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NYCB's Jerome Robbins

his first and most recent ballets back-to-back: the youthful high spirits of Fancy Free (created for Ballet Theatre in 1944) juxtaposed with the mature musings of Ives, Songs (choreographed for NYCB in 1988). Some of the other classics scheduled are Dances at a Gathering, Afternoon of a Faun, The Goldberg Variations, The Four Seasons, Interplay, In G Major, I'm Old Fashioned and Glass Pieces.
The Festival will likely provide quite a workout for Stephanie Saland, one of NYCB's foremost interpreters of Robbins's ballets and perhaps the company's premiere dramatic ballerina. "A friend of mine made a very apt observation about Jerry's work," relates the thoughtful, intelligent principal dancer. "His Broadway training gives him one of kind of sensibility and his ballet training gives him another. He's meshed the two together, and the dancer somehow has to be able to assimilate both of those worlds into a single world, which we call Robbins ballets."
 It is sometimes easier to understand that concept than to physicalize it, especially for a company nurtured on Balanchine's plotless, neo-classical ballets. Balanchine's works are straightforward, structured in an idiom that is "strictly so," according to Saland. With the steps he gives you. There's very little you can do except season them one way or the other," she explains. "You're not going to veer off in some incredible direction and turn the ballet into something it's not.
 But Robbins's ballets place less emphasis on technique, more on theatricality. Although most of his ballets are also plotless, stories and relationships are frequently implied. While Robbins rehearses his dancers down to the most minute detail, he usually will not specify what, if anything, the ballets are actually about. "His ballets definitely deal with interrelationships and the shape between the dancers, be that physical or emotional," reflects Saland. "But you don't conjure up characters for these ballets. Jerry's intent is very clear in the steps; it's built in choreographically."

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But the finest Robbins dancers are those who come across as real people, distinct individuals who imbue the choreography with their own humanity. "Jerry needs  a personality as well  as a trusted machine," says Saland. "It's not a question of spilling your guts or being indulgent because it's a Robbins ballet. But you have to find the texture. Whether the dancer does this with the mid or with the body, intelligence doesn't really matter, as long as the dancing has a resonance. The hard fact is that is that you have to have the movement incredibly well-honed, until it's completely ingrained in your body so that it seems to be falling off you. It can be so hard, and it has to look so easy." Saland has created roles in several Robbins ballets including Ives, Songs, in which a man looks back at his life. Robbins created a series of haunting vignettes that linger like sepia snapshots in a photo album. Many who have seen the piece are struck by a sense of finality. "I got an eerie feeling when Jerry was doing it,"Saland admits. "I don't think he considers it his last ballet, but he seems to be thinking about getting older and expressing the fears and realizations of becoming a certain age. But his vitality is something else again. So think it's a reflection, a reverie, rather than an actuality."
 Although there is always a possibility that Robbins, now 71, will get the urge to choreograph something new for NYCB, Saland says his departure leaves a void that cannot be filled. "I don't know how much he intends to disappear from the scene," she remarks. "But the face of the company will change. He puts in such quality time in the studio and takes great pride in the process of work. So that will be missing. And his cumulative knowledge of dance and theatre, his sense of history, all the sources that intermingle and are unique to Jerry-that will be missed." 

MASTER THATRE QUIZ - #8
What show played just before A Chorus Line at the Shubert? (a)
The constant Wife (b) Gypsy (c) Same Time, Next Year

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