The Suzanne Farrell Ballet and the Balanchine Style
I have recently watched a few of videos of The Suzanne Farrell Ballet performing Balanchine ballets and I am just fascinated. The dancing is so pure and you really get a sense of what the Balanchine style is meant to be. As an extreme Balanchine fan, I sometimes have trouble enjoying today’s NYCB dancers performances. Their port de bras isn’t as delicate, their fingers get kind of cup shaped or sometimes even flex backwards instead of doing a gorgeous Balanchine hand with 5 long rounded fingers, and they attack everything too harshly when it is not called for. Suzanne’s company dancers had flair and style without being obnoxious. They also dance so joyously, which I cannot properly describe. Anyways, it’s so lovely to see the dancers coached by Suzanne who understood Balanchine’s style so well, and who in her own right helped develop it. I so wish she would have been able to direct NYCB (If she even would have wanted to, I don’t know much about her as a person.) Does anybody share this experience?