HOLDING ON TO THE AIR
Suzanne Farrell, with Toni Bentley
New York: Summit Books, 1990
343 pp., $19.95
In the opening pages of her autobiography, Suzanne Farrell, perhaps the most glorious and mysterious ballerina of her generation, recreates "Meditation," the first of many ballets choreographer George Balanchine would make on her. How fitting that her story should open with this, the first of her increasingly thoughtful descriptions of what it was to learn from and dance for Balanchine. The story of her performing career is also a tribute to the genius of Balanchine, who died in 1983 at the age of seventy-nine. Having trained and danced at the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, Balanchine left Russia in 1924 and went on to create a Kirov for the new world - the New York City Ballet. By streamlining the classical vocabulary, eliminating the fuss and clutter that turned ballet into mere pageantry, and developing the speed, athleticism, and musicality of his dancers, he changed the way Americans see and think about ballet. He created a distinctly American style, combining the purity of his classical training with the energy of his adopted nation. Farrell, who joined the New York City Ballet at sixteen, would go on to expand Balanchine's adventurous vision. She danced with a new effervescence - with speed, precision, and freedom - yet moved through and expanded the music as though and expanded the music as though she had worlds of time. Today every talented young dancer attempting to stretch ballet beyond its classical discipline takes something from Farrell. But her importance goes beyond her influential performing career. She was Balanchine's last and greatest muse, the inspiration for such ballets as "Don Quixote" and "Diamonds," a classical reverie on Tchaikovsky that showed off the physical daring and the unique ability to move dramatically from off-balance positions that made her Balanchine's ideal. "She had enormous vitality, spectrum, and range," Lincoln Kirstein, Balanchine's longtime partner as general director of the New York City Ballet, has said. "George truly felt 'God gave me this instrument for my work.'"
History reminds us that Balanchine consistently did much of his best work with fledgling dancers. The evidence goes as far back as 1932 - to the haunting portraits of the thirteen-year-old Toumanova in "Cotillon." Farrell has admitted that learning Balanchine's technique was difficult and required the denial of her newly emerging ego. "I took the technique in faster than anyone else because I accepted it completely. I wanted to be in on everything he did." Dancing, like religion, is a profession based on faith. And Farrell's faith was unquestionably centered on the brilliance of the man who transformed classical ballet by extending its expressive range to encompass what he saw as the essential speed of American life. "Mr. B. found a new kind of dancer in this country. He was impressed by their tallness and esprit and their raw enthusiasm. He had a vision, and he could mold them," Farrell said. Holding On to the Air is the story of such a molding.
Born in 1945, Roberta Sue Ficker (she would later choose the name Farrell from the Manhattan phone book) grew up in Cincinnati, where she was a theater-mad, dance-struck kid who would dress up in her little sailor suit and play Mary Martin's part in "South Pacific" in her backyard. Along with her sisters, Donna and Beverly, who studied ballet and music, respectively, she was shuttled by an encouraging
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