SerenadeStagers discuss the ballet's challenges and allure.

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ew York CityBallet's Darci Kistler spins a fleet figureeight between two women on the stageof the David H. Koch Theater. "I thinkthey're too far away. What do youthink?" she calls out breathlessly frommid-pique turn as blue tulle whips abouther legs. The music stops, and rehearsalmistress Rosemary Dunleavy corrects thedancers' positions. The next try goeswithout a hitch. It's a Wednesday after-noon in May and NYCB is preparing forthe evening's performance of Serenade,one of George Balanchine's most seminaland beloved ballets.

Ask someone who's danced Serenadeand they'll probably say it's one of theirfavorite ballets to perform. Ask anyonewho's seen it and they'll most likely recallsweeping ocean-blue skirts, gloriousmusic, and the haunting final imagery ofone woman held aloft in a backward arch

like the regal masthead of a ship. Forthese reasons and more, this neoclassicalballet for 20 women and six men has seri-ous staying power. According to EllenSorrin, director of the George BalanchineTrust, the organization that controls thelicensmg and staging of Balanchine'sw^orks. Serenade is one of the Trust's mostrequested ballets. It is performed severaldozen times a year by professional com-panies, university programs, and balletschools all over the world. It is almostcontinually part of NYCB's repertoryand approximately two-thirds of theTrust's several dozen répétiteurs (formerdancers authorized to set Balanchine'sworks) have staged Serenade.

So what makes this dance meaningfulto so many, especially since Balanchine isfamously remembered as insisting thatSerenade is a story-less ballet—nothingmore than a simple dance for women ona moonlit night? And how do today'srépétiteurs keep Balanchine's aestheticattainable for dancers who may havenever danced a Balanchine work before?

A good place to start is with Balan-chine's choice of music for Serenade.Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in CMajor is a gem. In a short 35 minutes, joy-ous ripples of sound are joined withmelancholy undercurrents to touch on aplethora of human emotion. OrpheusChamber Orchestra cellist Julia Lichtenhas played the piece for 15 years and lovesit. She considers it, she says, "restrainedfor Tchaikovsky, but emotionally direct atthe same time, a perfect blend of the neo-classical and the Russian character." Sheadds that in rehearsals, the discussion isalways about the music's motion, or, inher words, "the travel of the music."

This makes particular sense in thework's second movement, a flowingwaltz, but the entire score lends itself todance. In fact, in an interview forSolomon Volkov's book Balanchine'sTchaikovsky, Balanchine, when askedabout creating Serenade, said thatTchaikovsky's spirit guided him everystep of the way. "I couldn't do it alone,"he claimed. "I'm not smart enough for it."

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Clockwise from far left:School of American Balletin the opening position;National Ballet of Canada,which performs SerenacJethis November; New YorkCity Ballet ca. 1935 in theoriginal costumes; PacificNorthwest Ballet, frombackstage.

Nonctlielcss, Balan-chine's genius for theatri-cal imagery and lush, full movementpairs brilliantly with Tchaikovsky'smusic and adds an entirely new dimen-sion. "I think it was his breakthroughinto the new, a glimpse of what was tocome," says former NYCB principalMaria Calegari. Calcgari danced theDark Angel role throughout her 20-yearcareer at NYCB and has stagedSerenade since 2000. She believes theballet's magic starts with the openingtableau of 17 women standing awash inblue light, right palms lifted and poisedoutward as if to catch the moon glow ofa clear night. "The female energy is setup right from the start. Then it buildsand goes in and out of wonderfulmoments," says Calegari.

In his book Ballet 101, dance criticRobert Greskovic goes a step further."Taking its poetic, dramatic color fromits music," he writes, "Serenade became,for the mid-20th century, the quintessen-tial 'ballet of mood,' reliving the status

and impact that Fokine's Les Sylphideshad had at the turn of the century."

Given how iconic Serenade hasbecome, it's easy to forget that the balletbegan as an exercise in stagecraft forfledgling students. In 1934, Balanchinehad recently co-founded the School ofAmerican Ballet with Lincoln Kirsteinand Edward Warburg. Concerned hisyoung students didn't understand the dif-ference between class work and perfor-mance, he decided the best way for themto learn was to give them something newand unfamiliar to dance. He chose afavorite but obscure piece of music (theSerenade for Strings in C Major wasrelatively unknown in America at thetime) and began creating a string ofvignettes. The first class had 17 girls,hence a beginning using 17. The nextclass had nine students, so another seg-ment was made for nine. When a fewmen joined the class, Balanchine addedparts for men. As Balanchine said in an

interview years later, "I didn't have it inmind to make anything. I made Serenadeto show dancers how to be on a stage."

With an expert eye and finely tunedinstincts, however, Balanchine incorpo-rated chance moments from rehe.irsals.When one girl arrived late, he worked itinto the dance. When a dancer fell inexhausted frustration, he told her to stayon the floor and made it into the begin-ning of the final slow movement knownas the Elegy. On June 10, 1934, on anoutdoor makeshift stage at the WhitePlains estate of Felix M. Warburg, thestudents premiered Serenade.

Over the next six years, Balanchinehoned the ballet closer to the version weknow today. The Tema Russo (theRussian Dance) was added for the ballet'spremiere with the Ballet Russe de MonteCarlo in 1940. What was originally a sin-gle lead female role was made into threeseparate parts: the Waltz Girl, theRussian Girl, and the Dark Angel. More

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Judith Fúgate (on floor) with Victor Barbee,and Maria Calegari as the Dark Angel,From the SAB Workshop in 1974, beforeBalanchine asked the three lead women tolet their hair down in the Elegy section,

men were added and finally, in 1948, atheatrically cogent and sophisticatedSerenade premiered with the nascentNew York City Ballet. Always ready totinker with his creations, however,Balanchine made small changes right upuntil the year before his death in 1983. In1981, while working with principaldancers Karin von Aroldingen, MariaCalegari and Kyra Nichols, all of whomhad the long, flowing hair Balanchineloved, he spontaneously decided that thelead women would unbind their hair forthe ballet's final movement.

Balanchme's wilhngness to adjust hisballets over time presents a unique chal-lenge for today's répétiteurs. Althoughthe Balanchine Trust understands thatthey will stage Serenade as it was whenthey danced it—meaning one stagingmight vary slightly from another—ulti-mately, their job is to impart Balanchine'saesthetic to dancers who, more often thannot, didn't train at the School ofAmerican Ballet and may not be familiarwith Balanchine's works. Sandra Jennings,a répétiteur for the Trust since 1985,found this out firsthand when she setSerenade on the Bolshoi Ballet in 2010.The company had danced Serenade a fewyears earlier, but Jennings found that ele-ments of their style did not matchBalanchine's. "Their upper bodies werebeautiful," she says, but she was surprisedby their struggle to land softly out ofjumps with the weight on the ball of thefoot, without letting the heel down, anessential element for keeping Balanchine'ssteps quick and light. Even tiny detailssuch as not allowing the fingers to touchwhen the arms are held in the round "O"of first position had to be addressed."But,"she says, "they ultimately danced

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the works gloriously."Bettijane Sills, a soloist at NYCB in

the 1960s and currently a tenured profes-sor at Purchase College, where she hasstaged Serenade at least five times, echoesJennings' concerns. "The biggest challengeis getting them to understand the style,"she says. For her, that means keeping themovement big without losing the lightnessof Balanchine's steps. "What Mr.Balanchine wanted is built into the chore-ography," she says. "No pretense, justhonest and full-out dancing."

Calegari agrees. "I try to make theprocess of staging Serenade as physicaland mtegral to the movement as possible.Mr. Balanchine loved passion and part ofmovement was passion to him." Cale-gari, Sills, and Jennings concur thatdrawing out that passion from today'sdancers means encouraging them to bendlower, jump higher and move fasterwithout looking overly athletic. Jenningsworks carefully with them to keep thebalance between the crisp articulation ofsteps and a soft, feminine demeanor."Some dancers really want to sell it tothe audience," she says, "but that doesn'twork with Serenade."

Indeed, it is the "interior-ness" ofSerenade that captivates. There is no clearstory except the one imposed on thework by the viewer. Although certainmoments suggest drama, such as whenthe Waltz Girl reaches up almost beseech-ingly to her partner and the Dark Angelhovers over them both, or the closingtableau when two parallel lines of womenbourrée in place and lift their arms in uni-son as though prompting the Waltz Girl'sslow, arched ascent, it is up to the viewersto create their own interpretation.

In fact, it's fair to say the genius ofSerenade is the very thing the répétiteursguide the dancers towards: freedom. Fordancers, that freedom means discoveringthe interior joy—some even say the spiri-tuality—in Balanchine's steps. For us, thelucky audience. Serenade grants quietaccess to our innermost selves and allowsus to impose our private dramas on theballet's sublime geometry.

Lisa Rtnchart, a former dancer with ABT,writes for Dance Magazine andwww. danceviewtimes. com.

^ ON THE WEB: SAB alums taík aboutdancing Serenade.

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