Word: dancers
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...First you go through terrible suffering, and then you become famous," Hans naively informed his mother when he left home at 14 to join a Copenhagen theater troupe. The boy suffered more than he planned: he was a catastrophe as an actor, dancer and singer. But he radiated intelligence, and something about him hinted at fame. Benefactors sent the adolescent to school, where Hans decided to become a playwright. "You can stand pain if you can write about it," he declared to a friend. The fledgling author became, says Bredsdorff, "a man of deep and apparently irreconcilable contrasts." Heinrich Heine...
...artists, American Ballet Theater can put together superstar casts that no company in the world can match. Consider last week's second world premiere, John Neumeier's Hamlet Connotations. Hamlet was played by Mikhail Baryshnikov, who with every performance is proving himself not only a wonderful classical dancer but also a superb actor. Ophelia was his frequent partner, the elfin Gelsey Kirkland. Gertrude was danced by Marcia Haydee, prima ballerina of the Stuttgart Ballet, who is appearing for the first time with A.B.T. this season. Denmark's Erik Bruhn, in his prime a great danseur noble...
Danced by a second-rate cast, Hamlet Connotations would seem much ado about very little. But the opening-night A.B.T. quartet made it worth watching - such is the strength and dynamism of these dancers' stage personalities. Bare to the waist and clad only in white tights, Baryshnikov offered a tortured Hamlet rather than a brooding one, all quicksilver passion. Kirkland's Ophelia was an innocent, ethereal waif - bruised and bewildered. In a pas de deux with Baryshnikov, their bodies seemed perfectly attuned, suggesting that incandescent union of talents and temperaments they have displayed as partners in better works...
...roles, and scaled her pay up to levels comparable with those of guest performers, who sometimes get more than $2,000 a night. By all accounts, she really did leave A.B.T. for personal reasons. Upset for months about the breakup of her nine-year marriage to A.B.T. Principal Dancer Terry Orr, and confronted more recently by a new ballet season and a new relationship with another man, Gregory decided to abandon her 14-year career...
There is no doubt, however, that deep dissatisfaction does exist within the A.B.T. ranks. Though it is good box office, the star policy upsets dancers in the corps or soloists who are capable of stepping into bigger parts but never get the chance. Says Principal Dancer Bonnie Mathis, 33: "I'm at a point in my career when I'm dancing my best and need to dance a great deal. But the opportunities are not always there...