Ballet in Balanchine's company was all about the female, the idealized female, and putting her on a pedestal. And one of the aspects of being a Balanchine dancer was to have your own perfume that was nobody else's perfume. Balanchine was so fond of perfume that leaves the scent of that dancer behind. So it's as if the dancers have a physiological energetic scent or pulse or resonance or feeld that is absolutely indelible, and nobody else has it. It's
their own fingerprint. So we each had to have our own, and we doused ourselves, and we're speaking about bathing and perfume. We were supposed to leave our scent behind so that he would know who was there before him.
Why.
It was just part of the culture, the same as people dressing up for class. They would just make up to the hill to the just so chaponskirt perfect, clean shoes and hair done, and their own smells all looking good, smelling good, all the volition in place, all the readiness of being chosen, selected.
For My Heart podcasts and Rococoa Punch. This is the turning room of Mirrors America Lance, Part four, The Muses. The dancers in Balancine's company wanted to present themselves well. They wanted to please Balanchine, catch his eye. They knew he was watching all the time in that studio without windows and from the heavy curtains of the theater's wings.
By this point, Stephanie Land was an insider. She'd been in the company for a while and had navigated the culture and ethics of Valancine's world.
We've rarely got any guests from outside, but Balanchine actually really did favor a few people who came in, and one was Pilentesmar from Paris Opera.
Galentesmar was a star ballerina. She danced all over the world, and even though she wasn't trained by balanging, she came to guest dance with the company.
Years later, I went to visit Guilln in Paris and her apartment and we had a conversation about her experience. And here's this person who was an eight twelve at Paris Opera. She's a very, very gracious woman, and we sat in her most wonderful apartment. She said, you know, the first time I went in, I've just never seen anything like it. It was like a harim, like a haram, Yes,
and we were so accustomed to it. But everybody in that room was just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting to be the one the concubines or.
Aum, waiting to be the one for Balancine. Essentially, Yes, in his early years, certainly he did either Mary or was with six of his ballerinas. And I say his ballerinas. They really were part of his life, and each of them quite different. In the stories around that, quite different, And there are many, many stories to tell. This was a time when there really were no clear boundaries, and the desire to please and the confusion around that with young women definitely was interwoven into that.
I wanted to ask you about Apollo. Could we talk about Apollo a little bit?
We can.
I watched a video of you dancing it recently, and maybe could you describe that ballet?
Oh dear, that takes a few hours. I can't even begin to speak to Apollo with anything that would give it its due. Honestly, it is so rich and so ahead of its time. He was beginning to show us how time and space and bodies and mind and music could be sculpted and merged.
Apollo is Balancing's first major collaboration with the composer Igor Stravinsky. It was the start of what would be dozens of projects they partner on, and it launched Balancing into international fame when he was just twenty four. The ballet follows young Apollo, the Greek god of music, as he is visited and instructed by three muses, the Muse of Poetry, the Muse of mime, and the Muse of dance and song. At first, Apollo doesn't seem to know what he's doing.
He's like a shaky cult or a young deer that isn't quite on its legs yet. And then you see him find his ground.
You watch him become an artist and a god. During the ballet, each muse dances for Apollo. They teach him, they inspire him. At times, it's hard to tell who's in power. They're all learning from each other. When Stephanie danced it, she played the Muse of poetry Calliope. She's the first of the muses to dance for Apollo, and as she dances for him, her body suddenly caves in on itself, as if an emotional or physical pain. Each time you hear the cellos make a sudden, low sound.
Then she reaches out while holding one hand to her heart, as if she's finally expressing what's within. Her mouth opens as if to speak.
This taking from the gut, from the core, from the soul, through the throat, through the mouth, and out into the world. It is again, I think, in that way that is so Hallmark Balanchine about the importance of women in a man's life. Only now, of course, the women are muses and goddess creatures on Mountain Olympus, and that they are going to teach this young god all that he needs to learn. They are the mentors, the guides, the muses.
Beyond the basic story, the ballet itself is beautiful. The movements feel classical yet totally modern. At times, Apollo holds all three of the muses hands and leads them or moves them around in a chain, tangling them with each other in this abstractly shaped knot. It's interesting to watch how the power shifts throughout who is leading who was learning. Apollo controls and manipulates the muses. Other times it seems he struggles to contain them, struggles to keep up Ultimately,
Apollo takes his place as a god. Armed with the knowledge of the muses. He's now powerful over them.
It is his deep bow to the idealized female and their role in shaping the world, shaping that world which is otherworldly.
An ode to his muses. Over the years, Balanchine would have many.
When he became very interested in someone. They might have been sixteen or seventeen. They had certain exquisite gifts like maybe an exquisite Arabesque or jumping, or maybe turning, or the way the arm the upper body work together.
When Garifola is a dance historian who lives in New York. She saw many Balanchine ballets during the dance boom in the seventies. When Balancine was inspired by a dancer, he'd choreograph dances on her, as they call it, and not just teach her the steps, but really dance through it with her in a way that felt special, and in many cases he'd fall in love with her.
I think for balancein working with someone and dancing with someone was perhaps the only way in which he could create a really close relationship.
Balanging was totally absorbed in the art form, and he asked the same of his dancers to fully surrender to the art form and to his vision. Holly Howard was one dancer Balanchine was drawn to early on, in the nineteen thirties, she danced the role of a muse in the first performance of Apollo in the United States.
Holly Howard a wonderful American dancer. She was arguably Balanching's first American muse, like the first American dancer that he became really obsessed with and that really drove his art.
Jim Stikeen researched Balancing's early career. He scoured the diaries of Lincoln Kirstein, the man who invited Balanging to the US to start his work. The diaries gave Jim a window into the dynamics of those early years in the United States.
Balancing took a romantic interest in Holly Howard, and they were kind of a couple. You know, everyone's super young.
And at one point they were touring the East Coast on the bus, Balanging sat with Holly his current news.
When they were in Princeton, Holly Howard, after their show, decided to go out with some of the Princeton men and the next day when they're getting back on the tour bus, Balancing sitting next to a different dancer and says, oh, well, you know, you decided to go out to the Princeton Boys so you can sit next to someone else. So
there's that classic manipulation power move. We don't really need to know too many of the details to know that there's some games being played and some power dynamics at play.
Because even though they had a relationship, Balanging was still Holly's boss.
The other chilling tidbit in Christine's Diaries makes a reference to one day that Holly Howard had had her fourth abortion by Balancing. It's hard to know what that really means, but you can read between the lines and think about what was happening.
When you say read between the lines, like, how do you read between the lines there?
So clearly they're sleeping together.
When you say use the phrase fourth abortion by balancing, is that imply essentially the fourth termination of a pregnancy that, like Balancing was the father.
That's my understanding. You know, we know for a fact that Balancing didn't want his dancers, especially the start answers, to get pregnant and have children, So it's you know, Do we have any idea how consensual their relationship was. Do we have any idea how consensual those decisions to terminate were. Do we have any idea what Holly Howard went through to go through those procedures while still dancing
at a very high level. You know, that's where you realize that the cult makes him into this entirely benevolent figure.
When Jim says cult, he thinks there's almost a cult around Balannging. He also calls it the Church of Balancing, fervent admirers who don't want anything bad said about him, writers, critics, and dancers who'd rather sweep unflattering stories under the rug or minimize those stories effects.
You know, we well probably never know the full story, but this is kind of the height of her career. She kind of fades away after this.
These relationships often faded away eventually. Lynn says he'd always move on.
Well, this is a little bit like the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth, Not quite, but a little bit like that.
Balancing married or partnered with a number of these dancers, five to be exact, Tamara, Alexandra, Vera, Maria, and Tannakhill. But even beyond those marriages, he developed other romantic relationships, which always seemed to be intertwined with his work in some way. Some of these relationships ended because the ballerina's career has led them elsewhere, to cabarets or to Hollywood, But more commonly the relationships ended for a different reason.
I think there's a sense in his work that the ballerina, the woman who for a certain moment is ideal, is never fully attainable, or perhaps once she appears to be attained, then perhaps he loses interest and moves on to something else, to someone else, she's no longer ideal.
Through Balancine's twenties, his thirties, and his forties, his pattern of having relationships with his dancers persisted. Sometimes he was decade older than his romantic counterpart. His company grew, he had more and more talented dancers coming into their own and inspiring his choreography.
In nineteen fifty four, he was fifty years old, and he sees this talent around and he's making ballets for them all. And then there's Allegra Kent. It's very young, Allegri Kent.
This is siren City. The traffic doesn't stop for sirens. And it's a free for all.
Wow.
My name is Allegra Kent. I was born in August eleventh, nineteen thirty seven, on the same day that Edith Wharton.
Died turning producer Alan Lance Lesser, and I met Allegorc Kent in her studio apartment in New York, walking in felt special. Allegra Kent was one of those muses who stood out. She was somebody balannging bent the norms for I've known who she was since I was a kid. I read one of the books she wrote cover to cover many times in middle school. She was my idea of the perfect ballerina. It's hard to think of a more iconic dancer than Alegra Kent.
Yes, your wall is just covered in dwellers. Most of it is career pictures, but I need more children and grandchildren.
At eighty five, Alecra's fingers are thin and wrinkled. She gestures to the photos on the wall and slow circular motions. They're mostly of Allegra, gorgeous and moody, black and white images of her in the most beautiful poses mid dance.
So over here seven Deadly Sinned.
There are shots of her backstage. One of her balancing on point that had been in Vogue magazine.
This is Russia ninety two. My name is over there.
A poster in Russian with her name on it, and then Balanchine and Allegra both squatting mid motion. They're dancing together, side by side. Next to it is a photo of the two of them on stage in front of the curtain. She holds a bouquet of flowers.
A bow with Balanchine Saraena Japan.
Scattered among all this are these blue and black images. They look like ink blots, rorshock tests. When we get closer we realize they're dark limbs in bright blue water. They're photos of Allegra doing exercises in a pool. She used to put flotation devices on her arms and legs and move in the.
Water, pushing air down in the water was easy to go up, but hard to go down. It's like contrary too gravity. I have a certain contrariness in my nature.
In these pictures in the pool, her body reflected itself, cut in half, the pool became a mirror. You can't see her torso or her face, just legs and arms reflected back. Surreal symmetry. Part of her is always hidden. What do you think was your favorite ballet to dance?
That is very hard to say.
It's like asking what your favorite child is or something.
Or your favorite flower, because then I think, oh, all the flowers should start with A. Those are all my favorite, all the ones that start with B yes, all the ones that start with P yes, all the ones it start with W. So I could throw out an answer, but I think I won't.
Throughout our interview, Allegra's thoughts felt watery and mysterious and hard to pin down. She often left our questions unanswered. Allegra was born in Santa Monica, California, to two Jewish parents. They divorced while she was still young.
In California, for a while, everyone changed their religion once a week, but my mother decided that we should be Christian scientists. According to Christian science, there's no pain. It's very complicated.
The Christian scientists around her believed the physical body had no substance, that pain and pleasure weren't real, and Elkra took that seriously. When she danced, she told herself the pain wasn't real and kept dancing. In this religious household, Alekra learned to obey authority, and she learned to keep unpleasant feelings hidden with ballet. Even as a kid, she realized she had found a way to express herself without revealing her thoughts. Dance was how she fought with her mother.
Dance could bypass words. That's something Balanging would understand. He was known for speaking through movement. For the rest of Alkra's life, she'd feel that displaying emotions made her vulnerable, so she didn't. She held them secret, and that's what made dance special. When a Lakra was fourteen, she and her mother moved to New York so a Leger could pursue dance. She auditioned for a scholarship at the School
of American Ballet. Her mother did the talking. They brought a letter of introduction from her previous ballet teacher, who wrote, Alegras dancing was demonic. Balanging observed part of a ballet class to a valuate her. She says, even at the time, she knew this was a metaphysically all or nothing moment. She had the feeling if Balanching rejected her, she'd have some kind of breakdown. As a Legger danced, she mirrored his face with her own almost involuntarily. His face gave
nothing away, and neither did hers. She wouldn't let him see how important she knew the passing moments were, or how eager she was to get a scholarship. After four short minutes, he left. It was all he needed. She got the scholarship. A year later, she was invited to be an apprentice in the company. Soon she took her first ballet classes from balancing himself from mister b.
She liked the way I danced, He liked the way I moved.
One day during class, Balanchine said to her, you can do anything.
But yeah, I was a little different the way I approached things, in the way the way I heard the music. So yes, but the music came first.
Of course, Alegra understood Balancine's philosophy. The music came first, and the when he talked about it felt almost magical.
One evening performance, we were doing a Mozart ballet in Salzburg, and he said, last night I spoke to Mozart and he he started talking about this experience. I wish I'd written it down because as he was speaking, one moment I was crying and the next moment I was laughing because it was so glorious, was so moving, so and actually I think he did.
You think he spooked amongstart.
I think he communicated with the greatness of the past.
Could you tell us about Balanchine's relationships with his dancers. He fell in love with a number of his dancers, He married some of his dancers, and I think that as.
Far as that was in the early years, and then his life became much more complicated, and it's so complicated I can't talk about.
But she would write about some of it in her autobiography, and things certainly would become complicated. Alegra writes she noticed a pattern in Balanchine's love affairs. There was a time limit around seven years. Balanchine got older, the women stayed the same age, usually between fifteen and twenty three, Alegro wrote. As an apprentice, Aligo found herself in classes with dancers she admired, including some of Balanchine's former and future wives,
who danced side by side. When Alekra was an apprentice, Tanakille Leclair was on the rise. Tanny she was called. She was eight years older than Allegra and looked like modern art. Allegra says, one day Tanny came in with a bandage on her nose. Apparently she'd kicked so high to the front during a grand Vatma exercise that she need herself in the face. Allegra was impressed. Allegra's mother and the other mothers talked about Balancine constantly, and that
included his romantic pursuits. They became experts. They said Tanny had caught Balanchine's eye when she was eleven years old. Later, when they went on tour, Tanny and her mother stayed in a suite with mister b. In nineteen fifty two, Balancine married Tanakil. She was twenty three and he was forty eight. He'd found his new muse. Allegra's mother didn't
like this pattern of women. Alegra writes in her autobiography, in my mother's mind, there was only one type of pain that could be truly serious, and that would occur if Balanchine got me. Nothing was as terrible as his making me another lolita in his ballerina gallery. In nineteen fifty three, Allegra was still an apprentice, and then she got the news.
I was invited into the company. I was fifty.
She said, yes, What would you say? Were some of the pivotal moments or turning points as a dancer.
Definitely the Unanswered Question that launched you as a star. That was the first piece Balanine did for me, the first ballet.
I was seventeen, Balanchine was fifty. Aleikra had been in the company two years, dancing in the core. This rehearsal was different, just her and four men. Balanchin told Alegra to take her point shoes off. She would do this piece barefoot, but her feet would never touch the floor. Balancin had her climb on top of the ballet bar. He placed the four men in front of her, and then he said, now, Allegra, step on the men's shoulders. The men gripped her ankles and she stepped up. Eventually,
on stage, the men would wear all black. Their costumes dissolved them into the dark backdrop.
I'm wearing all white leotar. Nothing yell tear down.
The piece was called The Unanswered Question. It began with one man, bear skinned, the only one not in black, backing onto the stage looking up.
A man comes out, searching, seeking to feel the truth of what this image is, and a woman is being held totally upright and progressing slowly.
While the visible man reaches for her. The men in black carry her forward. She's loading above them all standing, then sitting in mid air, then dipping backwards in a summersault, righted through the men's legs, and moved back up in a slow motion dive. It's like watching someone swim in a watery black void. And the bear skinned man the seeker, reaches for her.
Is she an image? Is she on the unobtainable? She is everything? But he can't. She's out of reach, and at one point she sort of curls into his arm, but immediately the men take her away and she's threaded in and at one point she's held on high and I slowly tilted backwards and fell.
Fell straight back from standing on their shoulders. You could hear the terror from the audience.
It sounded like a gas. Of course, the man caught me as I did every time, but I realized it bouncing love to create fear, traumatic fear in the audience, and that was definitely one of those moments. And then the ballet progresses. I'm threaded through their legs, I'm hauled around like rope around their waist. I'm held on high and I do Arabique, and then not at leave, I'm taking way and the man the seeker is still following me, but this time he's in back. He's not in front.
She has moved past him, and I'm unobtainable.
It was the beginning of her life as a balancing muse. During rehearsals of The Unanswered Question, Allegra felt balanging was in love with her. The question hung there. What did mister B ultimately want from her? She thinks at that point neither of them knew what was your relationship with Balanchine?
Like he choreographed, he chose me. I danced and very warm, not personal, very warm. He'd asks how I was, and things like that out.
Aligra and mister B's connection felt close and unspoken. It would never turn romantic. In The Unanswered Question, Aligra says she was a sensual, spiritual object sought by a man who could never possess her, the object of a quest, but she eludes the man. The mystery is never solved, the question never answered. That's the dynamic of all the roles balance shed would make for her. She writes, a suppressed in her life and unanswered questions everyone knew Balanchine
thought his dancers shouldn't have children. He'd say to them, anyone can be a mother, but how many could be a ballerina? How many could dance Balanchine's choreography. But Alikra got married, she had a baby, despite Balancine's wishes.
I did what I wanted to do. That was part of my nature.
Alkra speaks highly of Balanchine. She doesn't seem to want to get into the nitty gritty of relationships or company dynamics, but in her autobiography, Allegra writes that leaving the company for any reason was a dangerous thing. Balanging might not want you back. Disloyalty hurt him. He expected allegiance. Allegra writes that although he didn't overtly encourage awe or worship, in a subtle way, he used the idolatry of the dancers to keep the company together.
I think the first baby Balancing thought was an accident, but the second one he thought. Wait a minute.
When Allegra came back from childbirth the second time, she writes that he told her in a serious tone, Now, Allegra, no more babies. Enough is enough. Babies are for Puerto Ricans. I don't know if this was a racist joke or a racist attempt to rain Allegra in. Either way, she thought, this man directs the company, not my life.
But he welcomed me back into the company. He always will be back.
So what she didn't realize yet was that she'd never be back, not really. While she was having a baby, Balancing had turned to someone new, someone young, someone who had become his most famous muse of all time, a fifteen year old girl named Suzanne Farrell.
Balancing and Suzanne Ferrell were joined at the hip. This couple, this you know, you know, you could call it an artistic power couple. You could call it, hey, you know, muse artist. There's obsession in both directions.
I think Suzanne is probably Balancinge's most iconic dancer and his most complicated relationship. She declined to speak with us for this podcast, but she did write a memoir about this time. Early on, when she was at the School of American Ballet, it was clear that Balanchine was drawn to her. She had physical quality. He was looking for a natural musicality and a willingness to try anything he asked. Balancine choreographed the first ballet specifically for Suzanne when she
was eighteen. It was a potted duh between a young girl and an older man. She realized it was about the two of them. Later, she would write, it did not occur to me that I was entering into an emotional abyss so deep that perhaps I should decide if I thought it might be worth it it was worth it, But I never once stopped to consider that question. In retrospect, I realized that the fact that I had no outside points of reference meant that I made various important decisions
in a social vacuum. Balancie and Suzanne worked closely in the studio, like creative conspirators, and that trickled outside the theater. On tour in Europe, they spent every evening together at museums or shops, or walking arm in arm. Soon Balanchine became Suzanne's whole life. Knowing Balanchine's jealousy, Suzanne felt she couldn't really have other friends, and she didn't mind. Even though Balanchine was forty one years older than Suzanne. There
was this romantic undercurrent that was clear to everyone. When she was twenty two and he was sixty three, A newspaper even falsely reported that they were engaged, and Suzanne felt that undercurrent herself. In her book, she writes, quote, it was for him that I felt the first stirrings of adult love, and he was, without doubt the most important man in my life. But she knew Balanchine was still married to Tanny, that he was living two separate lives,
one of which she didn't discuss with Suzanne. So when an audience member began taking special note notice of her, she began a new relationship. His name was Roger. He was a couple of months older than her, and when they got engaged, he gave her a pearl ring. Suzanne knew not to wear the ring to the theater, but one day Balanchine saw it on her finger. He exploded. He ordered her to take it off. His anger frightened her.
She obeyed and ended her relationship with Roger. In the end, she said it was not her decision, it was Balanchine's. A week later, Balancing came to Suzanne's hotel room on tour. He presented her with his own ring. She writes that when she turned it down, he hurled it across the room in fear. She dropped to her knees, clambered for the ring under the bed, and put it on her finger. She says, quote. It was never quite clear whether or not the ring was intended to symbolize our present or
future union in marriage. But I think, at least to him, it dignified an exclusive attachment. To me, it dignified love and all its ghoshness, desperation and beauty. Dancers at the company knew that Suzanne Ferrell was off limits romantically, that she belonged to balancing, But eventually Suzanne did start to date someone else again, a fellow dancer in the company, Paul Mahea. They kept it secret, but they couldn't hide
it entirely. When Balanchine realized Suzanne and Paul were in a relationship, he did something Suzanne did not expect this time. He asked her to marry him. But Suzanne couldn't give Balanchine what he wanted. She and Paul quietly married, and that's when things unraveled. Balanchine avoided Suzanne and Paul started losing roles. Finally, one day, Suzanne confronted balancing. She would later call that day the most surreal day of her life.
She sent balancing a note stop the retaliation, or she and Paul would leave the company, not that she thought it would go that far, but balancing was still her boss. That night, the Russian wardrobe manager entered the dressing room and slipped Suzanne's two two off its hangar. She was crying, Suzanne, You're not dancing tonight, she said. At age twenty three, Suzanne realized her world was ending. She was no longer a member of the New York City Ballet.
And you know, you can imagine someone that young, who had built their entire life and identity around one artist, run a company, and Balanching at that time was such a powerful figure. No other company in America would be able to hire Suzanne Ferrell to dance, even though she was one of the preeminent dancers of her generation, for fear of incurring the ire of balancing.
Balanchine was so fond of perfumes that leaves the scent of that dancer behind, and it still permeates.
Teenage Sephanie Seland joined the company a couple of years after Suzanne had been forced out. The muse was still in the air, her presence lingered.
My parents got me as my graduation, President Magrief.
A bottle of perfume, and.
I remember just bathing in the scent. And at the time, Susanne Ferrell had gone away from the company, and I got into the elevator, I believe with Valanchine and Carnvan.
Karen was another famous answer at the company. When Stephanie stepped into the elevator, she says she saw something change on mister B's face.
A little bit of a look of displeasure or surprise or unease, And Karen just looked at me sideways and kind of cringed, and I didn't know why. And afterwards mister B got out and she let me know that the perfume was definitely to be discarded. It had been Suzanne's perfume.
Years later, Suzanne Ferrell would eventually return to Balanchine and his company finally forgiven. They continued to work together for years until Balancine's death. Suzanne Ferrell's story is one of ballet legend, now a piece of balancing history that lingers in the air and not everyone sees eyed eye on it. Historian Jim Steichen is someone who's been publicly critical of how Balancing treated Susanne she's.
Never denounced him for the way that he treated her, but you know, it was really shocking the way that she was treated, and it's hard not to think about it in terms of like a you know, blacklisting of like someone who spurs your romantic overtures, who chooses another man over you, and then you are going to punish that woman professionally and ensure that her livelihood is endangered and that she can't have autonomy over her own career
and life. So it's it's a really tricky case. A lot of people have criticized me for kind of parsing it out and writing about it. I don't know how you can call that anything but a misogynistic, abusive hower in something that even if she won't denounce him, it's like the actions kind of speak for themselves.
This is what Suzanne Farrell wrote in her memoir. Quote that Balancine spent his life building pedestals for his ballerinas to stand on is no secret, and although some might protest the position as one of inequality, no one who has ever been there has ever complained it is the most humbling and beautiful place I've ever been. Balancine was a feminist, long before it was the fashion. He devoted his life to celebrating female independence. End Quote Suzanne, Holly, Tannekiel, Elygra, Stephanie.
They all performed Balanchine's ballet Apollo. They all played the roles of Apollo's muses on stage. Apollo is such a beautiful ballet. I can't help but love it. But something about it bothers me too. As much as the muses have their moments, you know that Apollo is the center. The muses are important, but they're important because of what they do for him. Apollo is the god. He is in control. Apollo or Balanching, keeps the muse on her
pedestal right where he can always see her. Balancing. Has many famous quotations, but maybe the most famous is that he loved to say ballet is woman. People often quote ballet is woman as a sign of his reverence for the female body and the role of women in his art. It's a phrase you hear all the time, but what does it really mean. How feminist is the phrase ballet is woman? This is the rest of what Balanchine had to say. Quote man is a better cook, a better painter,
a better musician. Composer. Everything is man sports everything. Man is stronger, faster. Why because we have muscles and we're made that way. And woman accepts this. It is her business to accept. She knows what's beautiful. Men are great poets because they have to write beautiful poetry for women. Odes to a beautiful woman. Woman accepts the beautiful poetry. You see, man is the servant, a good servant. In ballet, however, woman is first. Everywhere else man is first, but in ballet,
it's the woman. All my life. I've dedicated my art to her.
Next time on The Turning Gone unchecked, bad things can happen, and they did, and then people are scared. You know, people are still afraid to talk.
The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and produced by Alan Lance Lesser and Me. Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed by James Trout. Jessica Krisa as our assistant producer. Andrea Assuage is our digital producer. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Special thanks to a leg or Kent if you want
to check it out. Her autobiography is called Once a Dancer also to Suzanne Farrell and Tony Bentley, who wrote the memoir Holding Onto the Air, and Jim Steichen, whose book is called Balanjin, and Kirstine's American Enterprise. Our executive producers are John Paratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvel and Nikki Etour at iHeart Podcasts. For photos and more details on the series, follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out via
email The Turning at rococo punch dot com. I'm Erica Lance. Thanks for listening.