Peter Martins' Red Hot Winter

By Martha Duffy

Peter Martins' Red Hot Winter He tackles new ballets and responsibility for New York City Ballet

For both critics and fans, the popular way to describe Peter Martins, 36, is as "a young god." He is blond, handsome and ruggedly virile, with the physique of a football tight end (6 ft. 2 in., 180 Ibs.). His dancing is strong and clear, the picture of disciplined power and instinctive authority. Yet unlike his great contemporaries Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev, Martins is not a magnet for the media. His impact has been almost entirely through his role as leading male dancer with the New York City Ballet, a company where the choreography rather than the performer is designed to star.

Martins' influence on ballet in America has much to do with the ease and confidence of his style. He has set a flawless standard for partnering a ballerina. If the aggressive vigor of Edward Villella and Jacques d'Amboise made classical dance an attractive pursuit for men, Martins has taken that style and said, in effect, "Relax." He never inflates a movement, never accelerates into showy riffs of excess energy.

Right now he is a busy young god. He is the author of a new book, Far from Denmark (Little, Brown; $24.95), part autobiography, part candid, intelligent comment on performing and choreographing. In the past five years he has become an accomplished dance maker. In the next few months he will be completing new works for the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Hartford Ballet, as well as for City Ballet. This week the curtain goes up at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on his first attempt at Broadway choreography: the dances in a revival of George Balanchine's 1936 musical On Your Toes.

Martins' destiny probably lies in choreography, but his approach to it from now on will be radically different because he has, for all practical purposes, succeeded Balanchine as artistic director of New York City Ballet. There has been no formal announcement. Balanchine's authority, when he is able to exercise it, is still unquestioned. But at 78 he is in very weak health, hospitalized since early November with balance and circulatory problems. Says Lincoln Kirstein, 75, "Mr. B.'s" longtime partner: "Peter Martins is running the company. He is not displacing anyone, or pushing anyone out."

The task of succeeding Balanchine, a choreographer of genius and a sublime example of the benevolent despot, is awesome. Why Martins? To Kirstein the matter was clear and simple, like everything else about Martins. "It's awfully hard to ignore the fact that he looks the way he does," says Kirstein. "He is like a Cartier object. There is a moral correspondence between psychology and physique. He is a heroic dancer, with a heroic stance. And his behavior is rather heroic."

Guiding City Ballet's future needs a kind of heroism, the stoic, clear-headed kind. Born in Copenhagen and trained at the Royal Danish Ballet School, Martins began dancing with City Ballet in 1967, after Balanchine spotted him as a good partner for Suzanne Farrell. His training for his new job began in 1977 as a byproduct of learning how to create dance. Balanchine guided him closely, even assigning him music. "I consider myself fortunate to have him there, tough as it was at times," says Martins. "People say to me, 'Do things your way,' but he never changed my steps and I learned everything from him-- lighting, costumes, music."

Martins fondly recalls the mornings when Balanchine arrived at the theater at 8 a.m. to help him with the fine points of lighting. But Mr. B. was not always so accommodating. A scant three hours before the premiere of Martins' setting of Stravinsky's Suite from Histoire du Soldat, Balanchine examined the costumes, pronounced them "awful" and threw them out. The dancers went on clothed in bits and pieces from the costume bins and shod in boots that Martins himself had spray-painted black an hour earlier. "He was right," Martins now says. "The costumes I had picked melted into the set." Looking back he observes, "Everything was a compromise, but I am better for it. I don't fly off the handle, or yell or scream."

Choreography has taught Martins much more. "From the moment I began, I saw the company completely differently. I have special feelings about each and every kid, their capacities and limitations. In the rehearsal room, you know." Martins used to be a regular at performances of other dance troupes and at Broadway musicals. He is around much less nowadays, because it distracts from his listening time. "It means an evening, and that means five records. I look for music constantly--right now, Schubert. This is what I do instead of sleep. Sometimes I think it was easier when Mr. B. was handing me records and saying, 'Do.' "

In his book, Martins describes his first work, Calcium Light Night, which was set to music by Charles Ives, as "sharp and acid." It was also young and sexy. Thereafter he made several small ballets, all at least lively, some a bit close to the exercise book. In the past year he has taken a big step forward. In The Magic Flute, a comic folktale ballet (not related to Mozart's opera), Martins produced an earthy, unpretentious romp. Concerto for Two Solo Pianos, made for last June's Stravinsky festival, recalls the sharp, acidulous Calcium, but it is more complex and by far the most dramatic of Martins' ballets.

In 1983 an old friend and former N.Y.C.B. colleague, Robert Weiss, 33, the new artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, will get Martins' version of Bournonville's La Sylphide. For the Hartford Ballet, Martins will do a ballet set to Schubert. There is doubtless more Schubert in store for the home company too, but before that he will set a Rossini overture for Merrill Ashley, N.Y.C.B.'s allegro virtuoso.

"Right now I have the feeling of late," said Martins last week, propped up on a litter of pillows to support his aching back, recently reinjured in class. The heavy work on On Your Toes, with Natalia Makarova and George de la Pena, is over now, but adjustments go on in Washington. In New York, there are the endless details of running a company: "I will finish my dancing career in a year or two," he says. "Then I'll throw those little slippers out the window! I have two movie offers that I haven't absolutely turned down, but I'm not an actor. Next year I'll weed things out; anything that is not related to this house is unimportant."

His world is in fact very small: the few blocks between Lincoln Center and his apartment overlooking Central Park. For several years he shared his life with N.Y.C.B. Principal Heather Watts, 29, for whom he created a number of parts. That is now over, and there is speculation among City Ballet watchers about his relationship with Ballerina Darci Kistler, 18. "What can I call Darci?" he muses. "She is a very close friend, a girl who is focused and dedicated. I like that in people." His leisure time is limited to an occasional Jeep ride to a hilltop aerie he owns in Connecticut. He takes a robust pleasure in spending his "low six figure" income: "It's my only frivolous side. I buy a picture and then say, 'Sorry, Con Ed.' If I had money I would fill my walls with Ernst, Klee and Kandinsky."

N.Y.C.B. insiders acknowledge that the company had been drifting since 1979, when major heart surgery marked a downturn in Mr. B.'s energies, and that with clear direction it is now enjoying a burst of energy. Martins gets plentiful advice from Jerome Robbins, Balanchine's longtime colleague in choreography. The new job means a profound change in Martins' personal relationships: old bosses are equals, old pals are subordinates who must sometimes be disappointed. "It's a tough time now. We still think that Mr. B. will walk in Tuesday at 11," he says. He shifts the pillows under his back and adds in his blunt, candid way, "I don't know how the hell I'll do it all, but I can exercise diplomacy like nobody else."

--By Martha Duffy

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