Word: gelsey
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...first time in months, Gelsey did something sensible. She returned to New York, where therapists provided massages and muscle stretches; physicians worked on a severe potassium deficiency. She studied again with David Howard and with Dance Teacher Stanley Williams, who had helped her through her previous ordeal under Balanchine...
...grew healthier and stronger, she found it easier to untangle the psychological snarls that had tripped her. Analysis helped; born old, Gelsey decided that it was time to grow up. "I had to want to get well," she says. "I had to have the desire to dance again and work." Gradually it came. She picked up with A.B.T., at first not dancing at full strength. Those who knew what she had been through crossed their fingers, held their breath and marveled. Says Williams: "That she survived all that is remarkable." Soon the "steel-like legs" were as pert as when...
...tour in Europe last summer, Gelsey and A.B.T. Soloist Richard Schafer, 25, discovered each other. Tall, blond and as unflappable as Gelsey is volatile, Schafer showed her a world beyond ballet. He packed her along on sightseeing jaunts and taught her to be interested in good food and wine. "Richard has helped me more than anybody," says Gelsey. "He makes me laugh about certain things about myself. Just to see how he feels about me makes me feel good." In that frame of mind, Gelsey was primed last autumn to discover the joys of childhood in Baryshnikov's Nutcracker...
...Gelsey no longer feels frantic about a day off," says Schafer, and then hedges: "Or three-quarters of a day off." Her daily routine would still stun an ox. She haunts classes and rehearsals, whether she is performing that evening or not. In preparation for Don Q, she took long sessions in the use of a fan and castanets. If Gelsey were asked to play the lead in Hamlet, she might very well decide to learn Danish...
Then there are her shoes. All dancers are meticulous about their slippers, so Gelsey is fanatic. A toe shoe is a rigid object. To get one of her 50 pairs in shape, she brushes Fabulon floor wax into the shoe to make it even harder. Since hard shoes make noise, she next pounds the stiffness out with a tinsmith's hammer. Then she sews on ribbons and bits of elastic. Done? Almost. Just before a performance she pulls the shoes on over socks, brushes them with fast-drying alcohol and removes the socks. Putting the shoes back on, she says...