Word: seene
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Spanish girl who defies her innkeeper father and marries Basil, the barber of her choice, Gelsey has the kind of high-stepping, scenery-chewing part that can hurl an artist into stardom. Don Q offers some of the great bravura set pieces in the classical repertory, and Baryshnikov has seen to it that the routines spill into each other and positively spatter on the stage, threatening to engulf the aisles and even (somebody call the cops!) the streets outside...
...pure dancer in Gelsey could be seen last week when A.B.T. opened its New York season with a new production of Balanchine's Theme and Variations, a ballet as precise as Don Q is broad. David Howard, one of Gelsey's two current instructors, describes the challenge: "Theme requires diamond sharpness, tremendous speed, a glittering technique. The Balanchine style is small, sharp, quick footwork." Gelsey's performance was in the way of a reprise. When she first conquered the ballet's fiendish demands at 17, she gave notice that she could do anything. Nothing she does now suggests otherwise...
...matter of physique, nature did not deal Gelsey an ideal hand, but she trumped every disadvantage. Her facial features seem to have been intended for a slightly larger head. So? What big blue eyes she has and what an alluring Gioconda half-smile, all the better to be seen clearly from the third balcony. And those long arms and legs: Should they not be attached to a bigger body? In motion, Gelsey's torso seems to lose what little substance it has. Mass is translated into a continuum of grace...
Then came Baryshnikov. Gelsey had met him briefly on a 1972 tour with the City Ballet in Russia, and he had seen her perform there. During the summer of 1974, she went to Toronto to see Baryshnikov dance. At a supper afterward they hit it off. Sizing her up, the 5 ft. 6½ in. Baryshnikov remarked, "Hhmm, good partner, right size." A few days later Gelsey was back in New York, working at the barre, when she got a phone call from a member of Baryshnikov's entourage. Misha had just decided not to return to the Soviet Union...
Khan's sheltered lifestyle prevented him from visiting the U.S. earlier. He has toured the Soviet Union, China, Europe and the Middle East, but Khan says he was afraid to come here because of what he had heard and seen through movies and television. He left American audiences would not be as receptive as those of other countries, and he did not want to leave the security of "staying in my own conditions...