Spring 2012 Ball et Review The Caramel Variations by Ian Spencer Bell from Ballet Review Spring 2012 Cover Photograph by Stephanie Berger, BAM : Silas Riener in Merce Cunningham’s Split Sides . © 2012 Dance Research Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Moscow – Clement Crisp 5 Chicago – Joseph Houseal 6 Oslo – Peter Sparling 9 Washington, D. C. – George Jackson 10 Boston – Jeffrey Gantz 12 Toronto – Gary Smith 13 Ann Arbor – Peter Sparling 16 Toronto – Gary Smith 17 New York – George Jackson Ian Spencer Bell 31 18 The Caramel Variations Darrell Wilkins 31 Malakhov’s La Péri Francis Mason 38 Armgard von Bardeleben on Graham Don Daniels 41 The Iron Shoe Joel Lobenthal 64 46 A Conversation with Nicolai Hansen Ballet Review 40.1 Leigh Witchel Spring 2012 51 A Parisian Spring Editor and Designer: Marvin Hoshino Francis Mason Managing Editor: 55 Erick Hawkins on Graham Roberta Hellman Joseph Houseal Senior Editor: 59 The Ecstatic Flight of Lin Hwa-min Don Daniels Associate Editor: Emily Hite Joel Lobenthal 64 Yvonne Mounsey: Encounters with Mr B 46 Associate Editor: Nicole Dekle Collins Larry Kaplan 71 Psyché and Phèdre Copy Editor: Barbara Palfy Sandra Genter Photographers: 74 Next Wave Tom Brazil Costas 82 London Reporter – Clement Crisp 89 More Balanchine Variations – Jay Rogoff Associates: Peter Anastos 90 Pina – Jeffrey Gantz Robert Gres kovic 92 Body of a Dancer – Jay Rogoff George Jackson 93 Music on Disc – George Dorris Elizabeth Kendall 71 100 Check It Out Paul Parish Nancy Reynolds James Sutton David Vaughan Edward Willinger Cover Photograph by Stephanie Berger, BAM : Silas Riener Sarah C. Woodcock in Merce Cunningham’s Split Sides . Natalie Wright. (Photo courtesy of Natalie Wright) 18 ballet review The Caramel Variations known. She didn’t wear her hair in tight braids with pink plastic poodle barrettes, like my friend Andrea. She didn’t shout and curse and slap my face and tell me she deserved to be the lead in the school musical, the way Ian Spencer Bell Porscha had. And she wasn’t like those timid, overly polite girls who hid in their mother’s I am interested in black and mixed-race danc - skirt during one of those all-churches picnics, ers, ballerinas in particular, because I see al - where we’d see the Baptists once a year. most none in the major classical companies. At SAB, Natalie didn’t call people out like Like me, the gay boy who didn’t want to be Nikkia had: “Oh, hell no. Someone tell that Prince Siegfied but Odette, they too are “oth - white girl to stop staring at me.” And she did er.” Now, when I am teaching “swan arms” to not have a name like Aesha. She dressed like my students I think of Darci Kistler and Ju- the ninety-nine other girls there: short den - lie Kent. I wish an image of a black ballerina im shorts, Gap Ts, Keds, Lipsmackers lip gloss, doing swan arms came to mind. hair tightly slicked back in a bun. In ballet I was fourteen when I met Natalie Wright. class she was the same, too: black leotard, Eu - She was walking toward me, or dancing, it was ropean pink tights. She looked like another hard to tell which. We were in front of Studio girl I had fallen in love with, Riolama Loren - One, on the fifth floor of Lincoln Center’s Rose zo. I thought maybe Natalie was Latina, like Building, at New York City Ballet’s School of Rio. They were both from Miami. American Ballet. Her arms and legs were so It was Natalie’s third summer at SAB in 1993 long that when she walked her whole body when we met. Balanchine’s muse, Su zanne seemed to make a swinging motion, like a Farrell, had recommended her for a scholar - chandelier earring, sparkling, dangling, gold - ship and had taken her into the school a year en. I fell in love with her immediately. She was early. Natalie had the highest extensions of everything I wanted to be: an exaggeratedly anyone at SAB, except maybe Maria Kowros - proportioned ballerina. She was exotic, too – ki. She could extend her leg to the front, and caramel-colored, blond-streaked hair, eyes it would nearly touch her nose. To the side it darker than the chocolate she ate every after - tickled her ear. And when she lifted her leg to noon. the back in arabesque, teachers occasionally I’m not sure I knew she was black, or half looked concerned or told her to bring her leg black, rather. She was one of four black girls down. I befriended during my three summers at SAB. When Natalie stood on pointe, her feet I recall only five black girls and four black boys looked gooey, like that caramel I mentioned during those months. I don’t know why I was earlier. She could turn three perfect pirou - drawn to the black girls, other than maybe ettes to the right, and beat her legs in the air because my mother, whom everyone in our as fast and neatly as anyone. She was also small Southern town thought was a “commu - musical. In the late afternoon Natalie would nist,” made friends with the few black ladies take her hair down from her bun and let it who worked in our church, loved our nanny loose on her shoulders and the sun would come like a best friend, and picked up the old black in from the windows high above the studio. guys in front of the Safeway and drove them Then, she looked ready to dance one of Bal - wherever they needed to go. Maybe it was be - anchine’s ponytail ballets. cause I was a gay boy who, like the black girls, I was surprised and upset when Natalie felt more than slightly out-of-place in that called to tell me that she would not dance in straight, white world. NYCB. We were sixteen or seventeen then, and Natalie wasn’t black like anyone I’d ever she was at the school full time. Her breasts ©2012 Ian Spencer Bell 19 had developed, and the faculty told her that cle and curtsied to the teacher and then to the the company would not take her. They said her pianist. Then we marched to the barre and did shoulders were too broad. the entire barre in that same height order. We So she moved out to Seattle, to train at Pa - wore leotards that were different colors, a col - cific Northwest Ballet, a kind of sister com - or for each class level, with matching belts. I pany to NYCB. We were in the same class there. think my mom thought it was run like a ship, At PNB, Natalie was the only black person in and that’s where she wanted me. the school and company. There were two oth - There was this girl at Martha Mahr named er darkish girls in our class, an Italian girl and Elita Jarvis, and I remember thinking she was a Latina. They weren’t even that dark. There so beautiful. She had an incredibly beautiful were no black or brown boys. I don’t think face, and she was very tall, and her body was there were even any black people working in very long, and she danced very long. the building at the time. Bell: What did you look like? In class the main correction aimed at Na - Wright: My hair was very fair and my eyes talie was to dance less. “You move too much,” were always really dark – and the nose is un - they told her. Our favorite teacher told her she mistakable. I’m sure I had a little bit of tan. I was “too sensual” for the company. Natalie was was by no means white. My skin has never sensual all right: she used all of her senses to been white. Being in Miami, there were lots dance, as great dancers do. We weren’t aware of people of color. There were girls there who then that our teacher was saying the same were my color or darker. There were Cubans, thing SAB had implied: You’re not right for the a Brazilian girl who was darker than me. We company because you have breasts like a wo - were all variations of caramel. But I do not re - man and you move like a woman and it threat - call a black girl. ens the way we see ballet. I have a distinct memory of being in second Natalie never did get a job in a major com - grade and the kids pointing out that my moth - pany. She pursued teaching dance in outreach er, a white woman, was dropping me off, and and training programs in Miami, New York, my dad, a black man, was picking me up. I re - and Los Angeles. She’s teaching at Los Ange - member the kids noticing it and me noticing les Ballet now, and I talk to her nearly every that it might be unusual or unfavorable. That day over the telephone. When I hear her, some - was the first time it was presented. times I imagine her walking, dancing, toward In first or second grade, I remember a girl me. named Xotcele. Her mom was white, her dad Bell: How did you begin dancing? was black. I remember understanding that Wright: My mom and whole a bunch of oth - she was mixed like me. I thought, We have this er moms organized classes out of a house. I thing in common: you’re like me and our par - took creative movement there.