Word: lovelies
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...later, Mr. B set Gelsey the stringent task of dancing Theme and Variations. He made his earlier version even more intricate and Gelsey rose to the challenge. But the strain on her overtaxed system was considerable. She developed tendinitis and began thinking the unthinkable: "I love dancing more than anything in the world, but I cannot dance with this pain...
Onstage, Misha and Gelsey were magic from the start. A trial-run pas de deux from Don Quixote dazzled audiences in Winnipeg and later in Washington. Offstage, a love affair flared up between them, along with much professional bickering. Against a common background of rigorous classical training, Baryshnikov relied on instinct, Gelsey on analysis. Rehearsals became long and exasperating. They argued about the meaning of different positions. He: "It's arabesque, it's position." She: "No, it can be different in every ballet." There was also some competitive brain-picking. Gelsey sought the secrets of the Kirov's impeccable style...
Despite all the tensions, Gelsey danced a succession of new roles in La Sylphide, La Fille Mal Gardée, Les Sylphides. Her first Giselle in May 1975 was a major triumph. Gelsey's peasant girl seemed halfway toward spirithood even before she falls in love with and is betrayed by Baryshnikov's charming, careless nobleman. Pure spirit in the second act, she had gossamer lightness, nearly unbearable youthful poignance. The part confirmed her arrival as a romantic ballerina...
...aspiring ballerina who rises to partnership with Baryshnikov not only made her a celebrity but also prompted her to take acting and singing lessons-though only for a while. She is not interested in an acting career and has refused several film offers. Dance remains her passion: "I love the physicality of it all." Like Emilia in The Turning Point, she is the daughter of two dancers who ran a small ballet school. Her special gifts are a flowing lyricism and a knack for acting. Like Gelsey, Leslie moved through the School of American Ballet and Balanchine's company...
Schickel, a writer-producer-director of TV documentaries, and cinema reviewer for TIME, is 45 and a veteran of one marriage and one divorce. Yet he writes with the freshness and emotional intensity of a 20-year-old memorializing his first love affair. His book is considerably more resonant than the customary first-love novel, however, perhaps because authors and characters in their 40s have deepened and mellowed, and those in their 20s are too raw to be consistently interesting...