Another Leap for Baryshnikov

In Balanchine's troupe, he hopes to conquer the best ballets

A dancer came upon Lincoln Kirstein, co-founder with George Balanchine of the New York City Ballet, in apparent distress, weeping in an office. When he rushed to help, Kirstein, 71, waved him away. "These are tears of joy," he said. "Baryshnikov is joining our company." At the American Ballet Theater it was the dancers who wept when Mikhail Baryshnikov gathered them together after last Wednesday's performance to say goodbye: "It is now or never. I have to work with Mr. B." For A.B.T. Baryshnikov's leap to Balanchine is a profound loss; "Misha" was their inspiration as well as their star, who embodied the best that the brilliant but erratic troupe could achieve.

The announcement came as a shock. In four years at A.B.T., Baryshnikov 30, had become a superstar whose fame transcended the ballet world. His cut in income alone is staggering. He now earns $4,000 or more a performance. In his new job the pay is $800 a week. As for Balanchine, 74, he has successfully kept any system of stars or "guest artists" out of his tightly controlled company. Other famous dancers, Natalia Makarova, Cynthia Gregory and Rudolf Nureyev among them, have made public hints through the years that they would love to work with Balanchine; the answer has been silence.

Baryshnikov's reasons for the move are clear enough. He left the cramped world of Soviet ballet seeking the variety and freedom of dance in the West. Several choreographers of stature created works for him, but the results were disappointing. Mostly Baryshnikov has been performing the romantic parts, like Albrecht in Giselle, that he grew up with. Along the way he tried out the jet set life at Studio 54, picked up an Oscar nomination for The Turning Point and bought a few toys like a white Cadillac, but all that meant little to a man who is a serious and rather solitary artist.

"I have spent four years learning taste," he says. "What's good, what's bad." He had first seen Balanchine's work when the City Ballet toured Russia in 1972. He knew then that he wanted to dance his choreography; now he has made the total professional commitment that Balanchine demands.

Both men share a common artistic heritage: they trained at Leningrad's Maryinsky Ballet, later called the Kirov. After he left, Balanchine created a revolution in classical ballet, but his newest dancer feels that he is, in a sense, coming home. 'I am entering the ideal future of Maryinsky Ballet," he exults, "two hundred years ahead, but here it is! And now I will find my own new face."

Baryshnikov approached Balanchine carefully. "At first I thought, I will kill myself if he doesn't take me. Slowly I realized that I would never forgive myself if I did not try. I am 30, with a few years left. If he said 'you are not right in some way physically' I would go through a terrible depression, but I could stand it."

He made his ambition known to people close to Mr. B and finally got the call. He went to Balanchine's apartment expecting exploratory talks, and instead was offered a deal to start in July. "He was simple and welcoming," says Misha. Balanchine was also reassuring about his vaunted control over City Ballet. "I don't keep my dancers like horses," he told Baryshnikov. "They are free. We are free." (In fact, Baryshnikov will continue to make lucrative guest appearances during City Ballet's offseason.)

Mr. B also said, "You should learn a few things." That is an understatement. Baryshnikov is accustomed to the large, open movements of the older traditions and to repeated patterns of steps, however difficult. Balanchine's style is a continuum of endlessly varied movement. It requires high, sustained power and top speed. Kirstein, the best historian of his own company, has written about Agon: "Clock time has no reference to visual duration; there is more concentrated movement in Agon than in most 19th century full-length ballets." A similar claim could be made for many Balanchine works, and some created by his less active co-choreographer, Jerome Robbins. So, if nothing else, Misha will need stamina, and having performed Balanchine's Theme and Variations, he knows it: "The first time I danced it I thought my legs would drop off."

If Baryshnikov will learn priceless things at City Ballet, it is also true that he has a great deal beyond star power to offer in return. Edward Villella is almost retired now, and there has been no true replacement for either his dramatic, robust presence in Prodigal Son and Harlequinade or for the wit he brought to essentially abstract works like Rubies. Baryshnikov may well be just the man for these ballets and several others -Symphony in Three Movements, Stars and Stripes. The true suspense lies in what Mr. B will create for him.

It may not all work out, temperamentally or aesthetically, but there is no thought of that now. "It's like a marriage," says Misha. "I feel as if I am in a church, and in church you do not think of divorce. Some people here are skeptical, but my Russian friends will understand at once and rejoice. There Balanchine is an incredible symbol of uncompromised creative genius." It just could be the dance marriage of the century. qed

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