{"id":4429,"date":"2014-10-21T12:13:22","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T16:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/?p=4429"},"modified":"2014-10-21T12:28:13","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T16:28:13","slug":"afternoon-of-a-faun-tanaquil-leclercq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irasperipheralvisions.com\/WetPaint\/afternoon-of-a-faun-tanaquil-leclercq.htm","title":{"rendered":"Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil LeClercq"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"682_mrb_tanny_Kino_Lorber_Inc2_cap\"<\/a>Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil LeClercq<\/a>
\nWritten, Directed and Produced by Nancy Buirski<\/p>\n

From the opening moments of this film, which include grainy old footage of Tanaquil LeClercq and Jacques D’Amboise performing Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun<\/i>, it’s clear to see what made Tanny so special.\u00a0 Her presence is arresting.\u00a0 At one moment she is majestic, aloof, and almost other worldly.\u00a0 In the next she wears an understated flirtatious expression as her leg turns in and out.\u00a0 In the promenade we see why Robbins referred to her quality of movement as resembling that of an animal.\u00a0 “A young colt soon to become a graceful thoroughbred.”\u00a0 Promenades tend to be so focused and controlled, but in this one LeClercq seems to let go and move with abandon, as if she’s being blown on the wind, placing all trust in D’Amboise to keep her upright.<\/p>\n

Through a series of wonderful old photos and stories told by George Balanchine’s assistant, Barbara Horgan, and ballerina Patricia McBride, we are drawn into the 1950s incarnation of New York City Ballet and its official studio, The School of American Ballet. Young Tanaquil LeClercq is introduced to us through the eyes of Mr. B, who finds her in the halls of SAB standing alone with her arms crossed after having been kicked out of her class.<\/p>\n

Balanchine is described by Ms. Horgan, as always pursuing the next “one”.\u00a0 In some of his most popular pas de deux, we can see a man searching for a woman.\u00a0 Some have speculated that this narrative was autobiographical.\u00a0 For awhile, Tanny was “the one”.\u00a0 Balanchine started out by giving her small roles, eventually going on to choreograph iconic ballets around her.<\/p>\n

“Dancers were usually short and quick, stocky and fast,” D’Amboise tells us.\u00a0 But Tanny was tall and elongated, with a strong stage presence.\u00a0 As Balanchine’s muse, she inspired him to take his dances in new directions to suit her movement and her body type.<\/p>\n

It is so eerie to learn of the roles that Tanny danced that could have been seen as omens of her coming illness.\u00a0 When she was still a student at SAB, Balanchine was asked to choreograph a ballet for a March of Dimes fund raiser.\u00a0 He created a “grim pas de deux” in which he played the part of polio.\u00a0 Tanny was cast in the role of its victim.\u00a0 In Symphony in C<\/i>, she famously fell backward into her partner’s arms.\u00a0 Robbins said that he cried when he first saw her do this.\u00a0 In Balanchine’s La Valse<\/i>, she is dressed in white, then claimed by a figure dressed in black who transforms everything to black, from the stage to her costume, as the company swirls around her.<\/p>\n

There is footage from Christmas 1956 of LeClercq and D’Amboise being interviewed for television after having performed the Grand Pas de Deux<\/i> from The Nutcracker<\/i>.\u00a0 They spoke about the company’s upcoming tenth anniversary and their winter tour of Europe.\u00a0 It was at this point that the polio vaccine was being administered to the dancers of NYCB — there are even still photos showing the dancers standing in line waiting to receive it.\u00a0 Tanny had been standing in that line, but at the last moment she decided against taking it, fearing it would make her miserable on the flight to Europe.<\/p>\n

That decision sealed her fate.\u00a0 On the European tour, without warning, she fell ill and was diagnosed with polio, which paralyzed her legs and one arm.<\/p>\n

The film does a great job of depicting what life was like for those in treatment for polio. We are shown footage of hospitals with a row of iron lung machines, into which the ailing are placed.\u00a0 We feel Tanny’s suffering and depression as we hear passages from heartbreaking letters that she exchanged with Robbins after the company returned to New York City, while she and Balanchine stayed behind in Stockholm.\u00a0 The camera shows us her first letter, which looks as if it had been written by a five year old.\u00a0 She could barely hold a pen.<\/p>\n

When it became clear that the doctors could not cure her paralysis, Balanchine took it upon himself to attempt to do it.\u00a0 He got involved with prayer groups and spiritual healers.\u00a0 He trained her in Pilates type of exercises.\u00a0 He would even hold her up and place her feet on top of his as he walked, hoping to trick her muscles into remembering how to do it.\u00a0 In the following year, Balanchine choreographed Agon<\/i>, and Arthur Mitchell points out that in the pas de deux, the man is placing the ballerina into different positions.\u00a0 He felt that this was what Balanchine was doing with Tanny.<\/p>\n

It took awhile before she could return to New York City, and it took longer than that before she’d go back to the ballet.\u00a0 Mitchell invited her to teach at Dance Theatre of Harlem.\u00a0 He described her as being able to “zoom” around the studio in her wheel chair in order to give corrections.\u00a0 Virginia Johnson and Lydia Abarca were among her protegees.<\/p>\n

In coming to terms with her condition and finding this new role for herself, Tanny was able to say that it’s possible that her polio had been a gift.\u00a0 She went on to coach ballerinas in roles that she had danced.\u00a0 As she found her way, it seems that those around her were able to come to terms with what had happened to her.\u00a0 It’s most impressive that she was able to remain independent after she and Balanchine divorced.\u00a0 Her doctors had told Balanchine that she wouldn’t live to see the age of forty, but she made it almost to eighty.<\/p>\n

At the end of the film, D’Amboise deals with a subject that was rarely talked about in public in his generation.\u00a0 Even a full ballet career is short in the context of an entire life.\u00a0 Sooner or later, every dancer has to come to terms with leaving the stage and choosing a new path.\u00a0 For Tanny, it happened way too soon, and in such a cruel fashion.\u00a0 But hers wound up being a great story of resilience and the triumph of the spirit.<\/p>\n