ART IN THE BIG APPLE

Author: Elizabeth Logue

As a classically trained ballet dancer, admittedly I've had a longstanding rivalry with the institution of figure skating. While I've never skated myself, I've spent my life defending ballerinas because they are, in my view, as much athletes as figure skaters. Both require stamina, strength, flexibility, grace and artistry — only ballerinas do it on their toes. Despite this, it is not my intention in this week's column to argue the superiority of ballet.

In watching the Olympic figure skating competition last Thursday evening, two things struck me: firstly, that there was an inordinate amount of clumsiness, and secondly, that the skaters skated half-heartedly. Throughout the evening I was shouting at the television set, much to the dismay of those with whom I was watching, as skater after skater fumbled. "Come on! You could have held on to that," I said. "You gave in too easily!"

In the back of my mind, I was thinking that it was this sort of clumsiness in ice dancing that had led me to prefer ballet: ballerinas rehearse a piece, perform it and only in rare instances will they fumble noticeably on stage. One after another, however, the skaters slipped and fell all over the ice — sometimes several times during the program. I was bordering on disgust by the time Irina Slutskaya, the silver medalist and last to skate, took the ice. The only thoroughly polished performance was from 16-year-old Sarah Hughes. I felt gypped that so many skaters had fallen; had they not rehearsed? Could they be unaware that this was the Olympic Games? Could they excuse their poor performance with, "This just wasn't my night," as Michelle Kwan had remarked after finishing with a bronze? Why wasn't it their night?

Coincidentally, the following evening I saw my first and only performance of the New York City Ballet's Winter Season. The repertoire was so-so; George Balanchine's "Walpurgisnacht Ballet" opened, followed by Richard Tanner's "Ancient Airs and Dances," with Jerome Robbins' "Fancy Free" closing the evening. I sensed the average performance just by eyeing the program, which included mostly corps de ballet members in principal roles.

Still, I was relieved that I was seeing New York City Ballet, unarguably (at least by me) the best company in the world. Here, I thought, I would not need to worry about an unpolished performance or bumbling dancers. Here, I could relish the long rehearsal hours that went into the final product — one of perfection, at least from the audience's perspective.

I stood corrected about half way through "Ancient Airs," when City Ballet star Ashley Bouder stepped back into an arabesque and fell to the floor, ribs and face first, with a thud. Like the figure skaters, it just wasn't her night.

I realized afterward, perhaps stupidly, that sometimes this sort of thing just happens. I am and always will be particularly harsh with figure skaters, but it took Bouder's fall during "Ancient Airs" to remind me that sometimes things just don't work as planned.

Sometimes, even after rehearsing down to the most mundane detail of performance, you will misstep and fall. It's been a while since I've taken the stage in pointe shoes, and so it's easy for me to forget the ease with which a performance can take a turn for the worse.

Perhaps even more important than technical ability in ballet and figure skating is graciousness and artistry.

To that end, both City Ballet and most of the figure skaters in last Thursday's competition did quite well. Bouder, after a rather loud gasp from the audience, shot back up and continued her variation flawlessly, and most of the skaters, particularly Kwan, compensated for a technically mediocre performance by continuing the program confidently and without hesitation.

Even worse than seeing a dancer or skater fail technically is seeing one who is a technical wizard, meaning that they possess the best physical attributes for the sport, flexibility, turnout and daintyness, among other things, but have no natural artistic ability. Abi Stafford, a 17-year-old City Ballet dancer who was appointed as a soloist in January 2002, danced flawlessly in the lead role of "Walpurgisnacht Ballet."

She was sharp and technically deft, but all the while robotic in her movement. It was painful to watch her. Since dance seemed to come so easily to her, it left me asking, "Do you really enjoy this, or are you just so talented that it would be a 'waste' to give it up?"

My thoughts regarding a polished performance in both skating and ballet thankfully evolved after City Ballet on Friday evening.

It's been a while since my ballet days, and it was easier to criticize in disbelief rather than to empathize. Skaters and dancers can spend their lives perfecting the technical component of their trade. That is the easy part, and thus, it's the part that is the first to go during a "bad performance."

What never goes, and what cannot be learned, is artistry. It is a component that I should not have overlooked during the figure skating competition.

Instead, I overlooked what is truly important, which is the overall quality of the performance, and in that respect, Thursday's figure skating competition saw no finer hour, especially when you consider the technical abominations that occurred throughout the evening.

City Ballet, on the other hand, had perhaps the biggest blunder of all: a robotic dancer who is lauded as a "young star," and rising through its ranks at an alarming pace, leaving some of the more pleasant-to-watch dancers in the anonymity of the corps. It's no surprise, however.

The ballet world is filled with people like me, those who speak before they think in answering a question that truly has no answer: what makes a good dancer? Thankfully, I've been in the audience long enough to know that it's not just the technique.