(2 of 3)
At the Top. She recounts with hostility how she worked for a whole year on a ballet by a young colleague set to Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette—only to have it turned down by the officials because it was "too openly erotic." Another ballet based on a picture by Picasso was also vetoed. Makarova quarreled with the grande doyenne of the Kirov Ballet, Madame Natalia Dudin-skaya, because she "preferred to try and impose her own rather stereotyped interpretation of each part." In spite of these disputes, she concedes: "I was at the top. I had danced all the leading roles in our national ballet repertoire.
In the Soviet Union there is no experimenting with new styles, new techniques, new choreography. I knew that if I wanted to go further, I would have to leave my own country."
When she did. she had to leave behind a mother, brother and stepfather—and two husbands. The first was a dancer, she says vaguely, the next a young Soviet documentary-film director, whom she divorced shortly before her defection and refuses to name because, she claims, it may damage his career. She found plenty of helpful friends among dancers in the West. Dame Margot Fonteyn gave her counsel and comfort. Nureyev broke into a year of solid bookings to do a special TV film with her for a BBC Christmas show. She was drawn to the American Ballet Theatre in part because its varied repertoire includes ballets by Anthony Tudor (Pillar of Fire) and Jerome Robbins (Les Noces), as well as classics. Said President Sherwin Goldman. "She is like a child in a candy store, contemplating the different styles and varieties of dance that are now available to her."
In her few weeks in the U.S., Makarova has worked at her technique with dedicated passion, taking classes every day and practicing when other dancers are resting. Rehearsing with a new partner, she does not hesitate to direct how she wants him to hold her, what variants she wants in the choreography, even how she wants him to act. Looking to the future, she is already working to master Jardin aux Lilas, the first of the relatively modern roles to which she aspires. After three weeks in New York, the company will start touring. Next fall it is scheduled to be in Washington for the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. By then, she may have partially answered one of the fascinating questions raised by her arrival. Can a top Russian ballerina, trained in the most exacting classic discipline, add new dimension to the peculiarly American ballets of, say, Agnes de Mille or Jerome Robbins?