Free The Sugarless Plum: A Memoir by Zippora Karz

much about but had not yet seen in person. But when I looked in my program, I saw that Titania was being danced by Nina Federova. I tried to find her name among the listed company dancers but didn’t see it anywhere.
    In ballet companies, dancers are assigned to one of three ranks: the highest ranked are principal dancers, followed by soloists. Principals and soloists dance leading roles. Most dancers in any company, however, are in the third rank, the corps de ballet, which literally means “body of the ballet.” Corps dancers are the ones whose names you don’t know. They’re the dancers who perform in nearly every ballet, often positioned onstage behind the principals and doing the same steps the principals do.
    It hadn’t occurred to me to look for Federova’s name among the corps de ballet dancers. At the time I wasn’t aware that Balanchine was known for giving dancers in the corps a chance to perform major roles. But Federova was indeed a corps dancer. I couldn’t believe it. Knowing that this was how good dancers in the corps were, I felt especially intimidated.
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    After a while, Deidre figured out that we didn’t have to buy tickets or sneak past the usher to see a performance. Instead, we’d enter the theater through the stage door and take the elevator up to the level where the stagehands, operating from a catwalk, pulled the scenery up and down. There was a tiny benchat the front of the catwalk where they allowed us to sit and peer down at the stage so long as we didn’t get in their way.
    We had to lean from side to side as the scenery went up and down, but I liked being up there because we also got to see what was going on backstage. The dancers would smile as they danced for the audience, but the moment they were offstage the smile was gone and they were leaning over, hands on knees, gasping for breath. Then they would joke or talk or yawn. They’d adjust their costumes and their shoes. They’d sit and massage their aches and pains. They’d run in place to keep their muscles warm. I’d put them all on such a pedestal that seeing them this way made them a bit more human to me.
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    From my perch high above the stage, I picked out my favorites in the corps, but no one I watched came even close to having the effect on me that Suzanne Farrell did when I finally did get to see her dance. The more I watched her, the more I fell in love with the way she danced. She wasn’t a perfect technician. Some nights she would fall off her balances, some nights she hit balances that seemed to last for days. But she was the most spontaneous, thrilling performer I’d ever seen or possibly will ever see again. Some people dance to the music; Suzanne was the music. Watching her, I understood Balanchine’s maxim, “See the music, hear the dance.” She was everything I wanted to be.
    I was also intrigued by her relationship with Balanchine. She had joined City Ballet when she was sixteen years old, and although Balanchine was forty-one years older than she, andmarried, he fell madly in love with her. The situation was complicated; nevertheless, Suzanne became his muse.
    Despite Balanchine’s love and attention, Suzanne eventually married a fellow company member, Paul Mejia. Prior to their marriage, Mejia had been given some good roles; after it, Balanchine did not cast him.
    Consequently, they both left NYCB to dance in the company of the brilliant modernist Maurice Béjart. Suzanne danced beautifully in Béjart’s company, but her soul belonged to Mr. B. Her home and her heart were always with Balanchine and she came back to the company. Watching her dance, I felt that I was witnessing a historic event, the master and his muse reunited.
    The more I watched not only Suzanne but all the dancers in the company perform, the more in awe I became of what I was seeing.
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    That first year, Suzanne taught my Monday morning class. There she