Suzanne Farrell

If any of you are as excited for Suzanne Farrell, especially
with the March 13 performance with on-stage narration by the leading lady
herself, then you'll be interested in this interview I
found.

Farrell exudes optimism throughout the interview, just as
she has in her life and gilded career as a ballerina and a teacher. A believer
in hard work and living in the moment add depth and understanding to her life's
work and relationships.  The fellow
Midwesterner (Cincinnati) grew up as a tomboy, not ever intending to be a
ballerina.

"I was very happy that I was as normal as possible before I
went into serious dance," she says of her childhood. 

Her first exposure to dance was through her sisters who both
took dance lessons, too.  "I would
always be fidgeting, you know, while my sisters were having their lessons. The
ballet teacher came up and said to my mother that, 'You really should have your
daughter enrolled in some of these classes. It might give her some poise and
help her to sit still, and make your life easier.' So I started dance."  At first, she enjoyed acrobatics and
tap more than ballet, as she initially thought the ballerinas looked too much
alike, and there was too much conformity. 

Not until later did she begin to realize the skill and
uniqueness of ballet:  "It didn't
interest me until the steps got more involved and I began to get it into my
body," she said. "My feelings started to change when I realized that dancing
was getting inside my body, emotionally, as well as physically."

Finally, she had found her place.  And just in time, too, as her personal life was about to be
shaken by her parent's divorce. 
"My mother was very interested in giving her daughters the advantage of
music and dance, if we had an interest in it. My father was not. He thought it
was really unnecessary. It cost money, which we didn't have."

Farrell turned to dance as a way to work through the pain of
her parent's divorce, saying, "I was grateful that I had dancing to fall back
on. It was my survival tactic. It was my friend. It was always there."

Slowly, dance had become a way to control herself, the one
facet of life that she decided upon, the joy in having her body respond to
dance. In her words: "It's a wonderful thing to be able to dance, to tell your
body what you want it to do. You tell your leg to go up, and it goes."

But the further involved in dance she became, the more it
dawned on her and her mother that the only place to continue her dream was in
New York. So Farrell, her mother, and sisters packed up their bags to move into
a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the big city.

It was in New York that she grabbed the eye of her lifelong
mentor to-be, George Balanchine. The pressure to be the best for herself, and
for the high standards of Balanchine was a lot to put on such a young dancer.
"Some mornings you would wake up and say, oh boy, I really don't feel like
going to class. [...] I didn't always want to dance every day of my life. But
somehow I knew that I had to get myself to the theater to study, to take class,
because I think better when I am in the environment I have spent most of my
life in. And I always thought better when I was working, thought clearer when I
was working."

Then follows the story we all know so well, with her climb
to fame, and the growing relationship with her mentor, and the start of a
lifelong collaboration. She rapidly became famous for her dancing, the long,
sleek lines that she created through the choreography.  All throughout, her willingness to try
anything and work as long as needed to get there, and her optimism kept her
true to her art, and her philosophy of living in the moment.

Even when a performance didn't go well, she kept herself
upbeat by looking forward. "You do the best you can. It was wonderful to be
able to go home after a performance, and think, well it wasn't maybe so good,
but it was the best I could be at that time. Then you have a departure point
and some place to go to for the next time." In order to be prepared for moments
where she found herself caught off-guard or missing a step, she rehearsed each
number different every time. She called this her "bag of tricks" that she could
rely on in a moment of need.

As for how she felt going out onto the stage - "The minute I
get out there, I realize that I'm more in control than I thought I was. Because
there is no turning back. It's when we think we can turn back that we don't
make good decisions, or we don't try hard enough. It's when you jump off the
cliff that you are suddenly in control, in a way that you don't have prior to
that."

Even her well-known hip arthritis problems didn't stop her.
It took her a while to come to terms with the debilitating pain that prevented
her from even bending down to tie her shoes at one point.  But, eventually she realized that it
was too serious to ignore anymore - "It was the first time that dance had let
me down. What had been my salvation and my security with my body was abandoning
me. This was emotionally and physically devastating."

She finally got the surgery necessary, and the doctors told
her she'd never be able to dance again. But again, her ability to work through
the darkest moments prevailed: "If you think positively that you can do it, you
are already closer than if you didn't even try to do it. I think it was a big
step for me. Consequently, I did get back onstage. I did dance again. In a
different capacity, and not with the range of motion that I had, but I got back
onstage."

When she retired, she finally had come to terms with her
aging body, and was able to retire with dignity and calm. As she says, "I
wouldn't be dancing anymore, but I will always be a dancer."

As for the future? "I'm sure the next forty years of my life
will be as exciting as the last forty, but they are not as clear right now, as
when I was a dancer. But anything can happen. I believe in mystery, and
miracles. I just know I have to be working."

And we're sure glad she is still working. See you at the
ballet!

By Melissa Wray, Marketing Intern