Sunday, November 11, 2007

More Than This Provincial Life

Pa. Ballet's Balanchine legacy
Friday, November 9, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Never use the word "regional" when you speak to Barbara Weisberger, the 81-year-old founder of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Especially if you mean "not from New York."

"I only mind it when people use it as condescension," she amended during a phone interview. During her career as an artistic director and now board member, Weisberger has fought against the notion that anywhere outside of New York City is "the boondocks" and therefore inferior.

That certainly wasn't the case in 1968, when the Pennsylvania Ballet had its City Center debut. "It was nervy," said Weisberger, who began as a ballet instructor in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. "We performed Balanchine. In New York. And we performed it well."

She paused. "And we performed it with love."

The company hopes to deliver the same next week, when the Pennsylvania Ballet returns to City Center after a 22-year absence from New York City. This time, too, the performances will be anchored by classic choreography from George Balanchine, the man who founded the New York City Ballet.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Pennsylvania Ballet.
WHEN:
7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 8 p.m. next Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. next Saturday; 2 p.m. Nov. 18.

WHERE: New York City Center, West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, Manhattan; 212-581-1212 or citycenter.org.
HOW MUCH:
$25 to $110.

"His work, from the early years, has been the backbone of this company," said Roy Kaiser, the current artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Kaiser, a Perth Amboy native, pays tribute to this tradition by choosing two Balanchine pieces for the program: "Concerto Barocco" and "Serenade."

"I could just kiss Roy for choosing those pieces," said Weisberger, who thinks of Kaiser as "one of my kids." She brought him into her company in 1979, when he was just starting as a young dancer.

Weisberger herself might be called Balanchine's kid: At 8 years old, she was his only child ballet student. In fact, she recalls sitting under the piano as he created the now famous "Serenade" to the music of Tchaikovsky.

It was Balanchine who, in 1959, reconnected with Weisberger at a festival and encouraged her to start a company. She remembers Balanchine speaking passionately about the multitude of major city dance companies in his native Russia and the dearth of companies in America -- despite the strong well of dance talent.

"I went up to him innocently," said Weisberger. "I said, 'You know, Mr. B, if you're really serious about what you're saying, the place to start is Philadelphia.' And he patted my head and said, 'Well Barbara, my smart ballerina, you must do it.' "

The Pennsylvania Ballet was officially founded in 1963. "This whole proliferation of indigenous ballet and decentralization began in the '60s, and it was really about Balanchine," said Weisberger. "Most people don't know that."

Over the years, Balanchine not only gave the Pennsylvania Ballet his support but offered up performance rights to his ballets. He continued to give Weisberger advice and even visited the company's practices to instruct them in his distinctive style. Although Weisberger left the company in 1982 due to a dispute with the company administration, and Balanchine passed away in 1983, they left a stamp on the company and on the Philadelphia performing arts scene that lasts to this day.

Kaiser treasures this legacy, but he also looks to the future with his programming. A signature piece that the company has been performing for 40 years, John Butler's "Carmina Burana," got a face-lift last year. The new version by Matthew Neenan uses the same music but updates the dance for a more contemporary feel -- "what we've been up to lately," Kaiser calls it. He also adds Val Caniparoli's "Lambarena," a ballet that combines traditional African rhythms and melodies with passages from Bach.

But in a time when arts funding is drying up, and dance companies have to "choose where to lose money," as Weisberger describes it, New York is still a stage worth coming to.

"Artistically the company is at a point where I want it to be seen," said Kaiser.

Once again the company is ready to prove that its art, whether or not Philadelphia is the boondocks, is nervy, passionate and full of love.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

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