A Dancing Doll Essay Research Paper The
A Dancing Doll Essay, Research Paper
The Dancing Doll
On December 29, 1952, a small miss was born into this universe with no production or luster in the little town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She was awkward and a small corpulence, and didn? t even talk until good after her 2nd birthday. She lived in a fantasy universe of fire beetles and princesses, change overing the animate beings on her little farm into mystical animals inside her head where nil could harm her. Small did anyone know at the clip that this clumsy and unpolished miss would lift to go arguably the best American danseuse of this century, and so fall to devastation at her ain manus.
As a immature miss, Gelsey Kirkland? s female parent enrolled her in concert dance categories, largely to maintain her out of the problem she was inclined to acquire herself in. Her older sister Johnna was already enrolled at the School of American Ballet, so it was natural that Gelsey would follow. When she was eight old ages old, Gelsey auditioned and was admitted to the school. The School of American Ballet, every bit good as the New York City Ballet, was founded by and under the way of concert dance fable George Balanchine. His school focused more toward short cuts through traditional concert dance preparation.
Balanchine was schooled at the Imperial School of Theatre and Ballet in St. Petersburg before the Russian Revolution. He subsequently described the plan as an accelerated version of his ain preparation. He claimed to hold simplified and speeded up the preparation procedure by depriving it of unneeded elements. ( Grave 23 )
His terpsichoreans were pushed to travel above and beyond the old criterions of classical concert dance in their executing of technique, but asked to go forth their ideas and emotions at the door of the studio. Many critics compared his terpsichoreans to robots & # 8212 ; that they were all shaped to suit the same cast of the Balanchine terpsichorean.
Physical memorisation was encouraged through infinite Sessionss of drill and grill. We learned how to copy the instructor, non how to make the measure? In a certain sense, by rigorous conformance to his demands, it was possible to dance for Balanchine without cognizing how to dance. ( Grave 24 )
Over the old ages of her preparation at the School, she developed many physical complaints, including bunions and tendinitis, that attempted to cut short her. Kirkland? s ain finding and strong will maintain her traveling through all of this, every bit good as a fierce and unhealthy ongoing competition with her older sister. It was this energy, strength of spirit and perfectionism that drew Balanchine? s oculus to the development of this small twelve-year-old miss in his school. Finally, after her male parent died when she was 16, he became about a alternate male parent to her. By the clip she was 15, she was asked to fall in the company of the New York City Ballet, and she quit school to give her clip to the concert dance. At 16 she landed the desired chief function of the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, and merely months subsequently, Balanchine favored her adequate to project her in the title function of his new reproduction of Firebird, the pre-World War I Stravinsky concert dance. Kirkland began to construe for herself the music of Firebird, conveying a classical concert dance component ( non to advert personality ) into the production. As she remarks in her autobiography, ? Every clip I attempted to convey play into my public presentation, Mr. B [ alanchine ] tried to queer me. I interpreted this as a personal onslaught? ( 93 ) . This was the first of many struggles between Kirkland and Balanchine that led to her eventual desertion from the New York City Ballet.
Shortly after this first brush, Kirkland refused to take any more categories from Balanchine because the technique he taught was taking its toll and destructing her organic structure. She sought direction outside the kingdom of the New York City Ballet that taught her a technique that would easy change by reversal the strains she had placed on her organic structure by trying to conform to Balanchine? s image of the? perfect? terpsichorean. Despite this, she continued to dance in the company. At the age of 18, she was winging through Balanchine? s repertory due to her alone ability to make full about any function in all of his concert dances. During the company? s circuit of the Soviet Union, Kirkland had a rare deficiency of control refering her diet, eating more than she? should? of the alien culinary art she came across. This led to an obsessional turn with anorexia that would take all of her energy. She wrote, ? I wanted to populate and dance on nil. I wanted to empty myself out wholly. Purification and penalty seemed to travel manus in manus? ( Grave 102 ) . Along with this new finding came illness and weariness, which led to her first brush with illicit substances. Before one public presentation, Balanchine gave her a? vitamin? ( which turned out to be an pep pill ) to give her the energy to finish a public presentation.
Invited to dinner by premier danseur Ivan Nagy and his married woman Marilyn, Kirkland was foremost introduced to the thought of deserting from the New York City Ballet to the American Ballet Theatre. With this in head, she began to let herself more freedom in the picks she made in her calling. She chose to travel back to a category taught at the School of American Ballet, go forthing her manager and wise man of two old ages, Maggie Black. Disaster struck as she was practising for one of Jerome Robbins? concert dances? Kirkland broke her pes. Merely after months of healing and rehabilitation was she could dance once more. When she was able once more, she took categories with David Howard who taught at a different studio. He one time once more attempted to retrain her from all of the bad wonts she had accumulated over the old ages. She continued to rend through the repertory of the New York City Ballet merely as she had before her hurt, but this clip she added more personal ardor and play to each of her public presentations, much to the discouragement of Balanchine.
At this clip, Kirkland embarked on a series of relationships that left her empty and tarnished. Partnered with Peter Martins in a few concert dances, a short engagement developed that extended past the walls of the studio, but had a violent stoping. It was through Martins that Kirkland would foremost run into Mikhail Baryshnikov, whom she would spouse with after go forthing Martins and the New York City Ballet. Baryshnikov defected from Russia and joined the American Ballet Theatre, and asked specifically for Kirkland to spouse with him on the phase here. Soon after his reaching in the United States, he partnered with Gelsey off-stage for a rickety four-year relationship. Baryshnikov brought both joy and hurting to Kirkland? s life throughout the continuance of their troubled association. When they foremost danced together at the American Ballet Theatre ( ABT ) , Kirkland had no preparation in the dramatic look of motion, and had to larn an wholly new set of dance vocabulary in order to execute the romantic concert dances she was cast in. With the ABT, the two toured Europe executing extracts from romantic and classical concert dances in concurrence with the local companies.
Back in New York, Kirkland turned toward a miming teacher to assist her with the still unfamiliar district of the dramatic side of concert dance. Performing the rubric function in Giselle, she faced new adversities in the dance sphere when it seemed to her that? significance was bit by bit sacrificed in a ill-conceived pursuit for? genuineness? ? ( Grave 189 ) and? the mechanical reproduction of manner [ had ] replaced mimetic discourse? ( ? Reflections? 44 )
. During this concert dance, she realized that Baryshnikov and herself had two wholly different attacks to their dance, doing tenseness between them and the manner they interpreted the dance and executed the motion.
In 1976, Kirkland and Baryshnikov were acted to play the lead functions in a movie about an American danseuse who falls in love with a Russian star. Disliking the false portraiture of the concert dance universe and the manufacturer? s involuntariness to listen to her thoughts and suggestions, Kirkland began to look for a manner out of the function and found unwellness. She became slave to both binge-eating syndrome and anorexia during the months of the production and, intermittently, for old ages to follow. ? Although Kirkland of course fit the current image [ of tenuity ] ? she began to overstate her image by going anorectic? ( Horosko 54 ) . Because of her vanishing physical frame, the manufacturers decided to replace her. Weighing less than eighty lbs at five pess and four inches, she was merely a shadow of her former ego. It wasn? T until her female parent was near decease in the infirmary that she realized the danger in what she was making to herself and worked to cut it out of her life? at least, for the clip being. She returned to the ABT and partnered with Ivan Nagy on several occasions. She felt as though his artistic attack to dancing more closely matched hers than that of Baryshnikov.
Over the following few old ages, her relationship with Baryshnikov would be away and on, go forthing gaps for her to day of the month other work forces, every bit much as she desired. These random brushs and relationships played many games with her emotions and her head, every bit good as giving her an debut into the universe of drugs, which would subsequently take control her life.
Pushing forward in her calling, Kirkland went on to play the portion of Clara in the classical concert dance The Nutcracker in 1977 under the choreographic direction of Baryshnikov. Following this, she was approached by Baryshnikov to execute to portion of the Spanish spitfire, Kitri, in Don Quixote. Feeling this portion to be outside of her scope, she one time once more sought outside direction, but this clip in the country of Spanish common people dance to acquire a better construct of the manner of motion she should be utilizing. Not excessively long after this production, Baryshnikov shocked the concert dance universe by doing a move from the American Ballet Theatre to the New York City Ballet? merely the antonym of Kirkland? s action old ages earlier.
At this clip, Kirkland? s wellness began to worsen. ? [ She ] was ill, but [ she ] was non that vomit? non yet? ( ? Grave? 245 ) . She continued to dance with ABT, traveling through spouse after spouse seeking to happen a suited replacing for Baryshnikov. By the spring of 1979, she was so ill that she became injury-prone and unreliable as a performing artist, finally taking a leave of absence. This leave was intermittent over a six-month period, stoping with her surrender from the company. After a brief production of Romeo and Juliet with the Stuttgart Ballet, Kirkland returned to the American Ballet Theatre, now under the artistic way of Baryshnikov. She was partnered up with Patrick Bissell for a figure of concert dances, which led to an matter outside of the studio. Bissell habitually used cocaine, re-introducing Kirkland to the drug, which she claimed? was non supposed to be habit-forming? no more unsafe than intoxicant? ( ? Grave? 281 ) . Besides, since the drug is an appetite suppressant, she used it to assist command her weight claiming that it was better for her than that the ipecac she used to do herself puke. Recreational usage developed into an dependence and coming to dry runs under the influence became a normal happening for her. She was fired from the company in 1980 for losing excessively many dry runs. Her life from there became a downward spiral to suicide. She explains it best stating
Not merely had I been introduced to the drug, I had been indoctrinated into a manner of thought, and I had been initiated into a societal universe. That universe was non located at the periphery of society, but at the centre of the respectable mainstream. In the company of fellow users, I did non hold to experience ashamed, or defeated, or depraved. ( Grave 301 )
Through her dependence, she continued dancing because of the force per unit area those around her exerted on her to make so, every bit good as her ain thoughts that there was no life after dance. She left and returned to the ABT several times, and became more of a dancing cadaver with each clip. Traveling through several traders and directors, her dependence grew along with a feeling that she could non dance without it. She had several encephalon ictuss and quarrels with the governments as a consequence of her maltreatment, finally set downing her in a psychiatric infirmary. Contending the infirmary? s menace to hold the province commit her, she made her manner out and back into the dance universe ( still addicted to cocaine ) after merely a few months.
Her dependence spread to include diazepam and velocity within a short piece. No 1 wanted to dance with? the drug addict, ? so she jumped from spouse to spouse with each passing public presentation. Baryshnikov was the lone consistent spouse she had, executing the concert dance Giselle with him on countless occassions, each clip with rave reappraisals. But indoors, she was falling apart. Slowly deteriorating, she turned more and more towards drugs for flight. On one jaunt to her trader? s loft, she met another drug addict by the name of Greg Lawrence looking for the same adult male, who seemingly was nowhere to be found. Intrigued by their short conversation, they began a relationship. Both creative persons victim to their dependences, they could place with each other and sympathise. After a cocaine orgy, they engaged in a informative conversation, reflecting on why they do drugs in the first topographic point. With his support and encouragement, she went through her first public presentation in a long clip non under the influence.
Knowing that she had to get away from the universe around her in order to kick the wont, she had to do a determination about go oning in concert dance. Deciding that if she kept up her wont she would hold to discontinue dancing anyhow, she and Lawrence left New York City for a little state place in Vermont. There they gave up drug use all together, indulging in faculty members and larning alternatively.
After two old ages of privacy, Kirkland made her return to the concert dance scene in public presentations of The Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet, but this would be her last public presentation. She was basically exiled from the universe of concert dance because
She bared her less-than-complimentary relationships with Baryshnikov and Peter Martins and dared to knock George Balanchine? both his tuition, which she claimed led to injury, and certain facets of his aesthetic. ( Perlmutter 69 )
Then in 1992, the expatriate ended and she was asked to come back to the American Ballet Theatre? this clip, as a instructor. Wishing to remain out of the limelight, she continues in this manner, still acquiring her portion of the art and passing on her cognition to a new coevals of terpsichoreans.
Plants Cited
Horosko, Marian. ? The Personal You: Finding a Balance. ? Dance Magazine. August 1987. P 52-55.
Kirkland, Gelsey with Greg Lawrence. Dancing On My Grave. Berkley Books: New York, 1986.
Kirkland, Gelsey with Greg Lawrence. ? Reflections on a Vanishing Art. ? Dance Magazine. November 1986. P 42-47.
Perlmutter, Donna. ? Kirkland is Back? Teaching. ? Dance Magazine. May 1992. P 68-70.
