F irst position first. Place heels together and splay the feet until they point in opposite directions. Fine, but keep those legs touching, no bowing at the knees! In passing, note the ripples of protest that exfoliate up from the ankles through knees to outer thighs, the pebbly grind of hip sockets trying to accommodate swiveling joints. Tendons, sinews, muscles and bones should now unite in sending an urgent message to the brain.
Wait a nanosecond for the translation. People were not built to stand this way. Now, dance. Countless thousands of little girl ducklings each year paddle into this wrenching regimen, known politely as ballet class. Many are shoved by doting mommies and daddies with an atavistic sense of how young ladies are supposed to move. A single-minded few are driven by the demonic notion that they could, some day, be swans.
Most are mistaken. Leningrad hears it, and so do Stuttgart, Covent Garden and New York: a star is born who might, just might, be capable of being made. So recognized, this singular creature is then cosseted and punished, cradled from outside interruptions and given every imaginable opportunity to fall smack on her overextended haunches.
Meanwhile, the cognoscenti settle back for a long wait. A verdict should be in in about ten years. For Gelsey Kirkland, 25, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, that trial has ended successfully.
Her taste and artistic outlook are constantly developing, and none of us can predict how far she will go. Gelsey has been drawing superlatives from balletomanes ever since she was a tiny dancer. Gelsey sped through every challenge of the choreography, the visual equivalent of the rippling Chopin score.
