Hail to the corps: growing up in the New York City ballet.

THEY ARE FIFTY-FIVE strong, from eighteen states and six foreign countries. They put in the hours of a CEO, but make only a fraction of the money, and often their careers are over by their mid-30s. Few people know their names, yet they are the backbone of the company that employs them; without them it wouldn't exist. They do what they do because they love it, although it puts more wear and tear on their bodies than any major sport. They are pros, proud of what they do. They are the New York City Ballet corps de ballet.

Seven NYCB dancers were interviewed by phone and in person for this article. Each of the seven--Aesha Ash, Antonio Carmena, Jason Fowler, Pauline Golbin, Jessy Hendrickson, Deanna McBrearty, and Eva Natanya--had a different story to tell. But their experiences overlapped, and one dancer's story often echoed those of the others.

NYCB is New York's premiere company, yet its corps is far more representative of America at large than the Big Apple. With very few exceptions--Saskia Beskow from the Royal Danish Ballet is one-NYCB dancers are recruited from the School of American Ballet. But most begin their study of ballet elsewhere. They come as teens to attend SAB summer courses, then stay to complete their training. In fact, home for today's NYCB corps is typically far from Manhattan.

Their dream is an NYCB contract. Most dancers begin their professional careers as apprentices. The role of apprentice has changed dramatically since 1992 when Pauline Golbin became an apprentice and spent the next two years, she recalls, "itching to dance." Today, according to General Manager Anne Parsons, apprentices (who must be between 15 and 22 years old) may dance up to eight ballets a season (which means up to twenty-four ballets a year), for a maximum of two years, are paid for rehearsals as well as performances (in the past they were not paid for rehearsing), and may take company class. By contrast, first-year corps dancers are paid a base salary of $842 a week for a contract that averages forty-two weeks, including the winter, spring, and summer touring seasons, plus rehearsal time when the company is performing.

Nothing can prepare a new dancer for the shock of life in the corps. "Mind-boggling" is how 24-year-old Jason Fowler describes the transition. "So many ballets, so many parts to learn, you don't have time for anything."

Aesha Ash, now 23, joined the company a month after dancing a lead in the "Rubies" section of Jewels in the 1996 SAB Workshop. "It was a shock. All of a sudden you jump into adult life." How many roles did she dance? "Oh, my God, I can't even give you a ballpark!"

"It was such a whirlwind," recalls 22-year-old Jessy Hendrickson, who got her contract in 1995. "All of a sudden you're doing two and three ballets a night. You have maybe two days to put a ballet together, and you're learning twenty ballets a season."

For Spanish-born Antonio Carmena, now 21, the first year was especially overwhelming because he spoke very little English.

Eva Natanya, now 22, who joined the company in 1995 just before it left on tour for Paris, remembers the first few months as a "whirlwind of impressions," with "the total excitement of living my dream."

NYCB dancers work hard. They dance seven performances a week six months of the year, with rehearsal periods and an occasional tour between seasons. "My fifth ballet, Symphony in Three Movements," recalls Deanna McBrearty, who got her contract during the 1993 Balanchine Celebration, "was one I had to learn super-quickly--in forty-five minutes. One of the girls went out with her back, and Rosemary Dunleavy, the company's ballet mistress, put me in her place."

Fowler was a last-minute replacement in Stravinsky Violin Concerto, which gave him confidence because it was a ballet danced by "older guys"; it's now one of his favorite works.

Hendrickson remembers the excitement of dancing a principal role during her first New York season. "Wendy [Whelan] was injured, and Miranda [Weese] was sick, and they needed someone to do Sanguinic in The Four Temperaments. It all happened in three hours. I had danced the role in workshop. They asked if I remembered it and said, `You're on!'"

Overwork is a fact of life. "You start at nine in the morning and get home at eleven at night," says Golbin.

"You're dancing while you're exhausted," explains Fowler.

"Exhaustion," Ash agrees, "is the biggest stress. Can you go one more night? Can you do sixty Nutcrackers? Persevere when your body is physically exhausted, when you're not getting rewarded, not getting the flowers, when you just pick up your bag and go home?"

Looking back, McBrearty wonders, "I don't know how I had the energy for all of that."

ANOTHER FACT OF LIFE is injury. "Given the sheer volume of work we do," Golbin explains, "eventually you do get injured." ("The body can't take it anymore" is how Ash puts it.) Everyone has a tale--a broken toe, a torn ligament in the knee, a bruised metatarsal, a third-degree ankle sprain, an extra bone in the foot requiring surgery.

"You learn the most about your body coming back," says Golbin. "It takes a lot of courage, strength, and determination. You have to be smart and not return until you are completely healed. You learn to be disciplined about eating well, resting, warming up, and paying attention to the hints that your body gives you."

"Layoff gives you a chance to look at your life and get motivated again," says Fowler, and "remember why you like to dance."

The company's new Wellness Program, which offers physical and massage therapy, chiropractic services, orthopedic consultation, and fitness classes, is a response to the heavy toll that injury takes on dancers.

The reduced size of the corps is surely a factor in injuries. In 1981, sixty-nine of the company's ninety-nine dancers were in the corps. Today only fifty-five are corps members in a company of ninety; the remaining dancers are soloists and principals. After the 1993 Balanchine Celebration, many senior corps members left and were never replaced. Today's corps is thus not only smaller but also younger than its predecessor. "There are new people coming in all the time," observes McBrearty, "and people leaving, where they didn't ever leave before."

"We really looked up to the senior corps when I got in," says Golbin. "They were role models"--something she tries to be to today's youngsters. In Balanchine's day people waited years to dance Serenade, Concerto Barocco, or Square Dance.

Now, says Hendrickson, "if you're there and you know it and they need a person, they'll use you." So first-year dancers can go into a work they've never seen from the front of the house.

McBrearty feels a special responsibility to share her knowledge of Jerome Robbins's ballets: "Jerry would tell us that we have to react to each other, that we're each a different personality and character. I try to pass that on."

After four years in the company, dancers become senior corps. They get benefits--like an occasional night off during Nutcracker season and a special repertoire of solos and "demi" parts. But even junior corps members can get a crack at principal roles. This season Adam Hendrickson (Jessy's brother) made his debut as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Ashley Bouder danced the title role in Firebird. Rachel Rutherford returned as the lead in La Valse, and in Saratoga Springs, Abi Stafford led the cast in Ballo della Regina. The Cinderella story of the spring season was Carla Korbes, who returned from a devastating foot injury to dance Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream (see Reviews, Dance Magazine, October, page 92). Meanwhile, Melissa Barak choreographed Telemann Overture Suite in E Minor, her fourth ballet, for this year's SAB Workshop performance.

Dancers grow up in the corps. They learn to take care of their bodies and cope with uncertainty. Ash relishes the sense of community she finds with the other women in her dressing room. "Everyone is very close. It's great to have that support."

PEOPLE DEVELOP OUTSIDE INTERESTS. "When I get all tied up inside, I write poetry and take pictures," says McBrearty, this year's Danskin "spokesmodel." Fowler has a dog named Sadie and friends from high school he spends his free time with. Carmena gets back to Spain as often as he can to go scuba diving with his father and sister. Golbin has a new husband, and like Ash and Natanya is working toward a BA degree at Fordham University. Nineteen NYCB dancers receive scholarship assistance from Dance On, a privately funded program founded by NYCB board president Robert I. Lipp to help classical dancers in the New York metropolitan area further their education. Natanya, who turned down Harvard to dance, is majoring in philosophy and, among other projects, designing a course on East Asian anthropology.

With age comes wisdom. "If only I knew then what I know now about learning and perfecting things," says Ash. Sure, there are roles she'd love to dance. But she is philosophical. "Everything has a divine timing. Everything happens for a reason."

"You need a lot of inner strength," McBrearty believes.

"You're there for yourself," asserts Henderson. "I guess what I find most rewarding is that every night you're dancing a different ballet."

For Natanya, "the experience of being onstage and dancing the ballets of the NYCB repertory is beyond anything I could have imagined sitting in the audience."

Critic Arlene Croce once described Balanchine's works as "richly concentrated, high-protein ballets." The corps is never merely a frame for the action in his ballets as in Giselle and Swan Lake, staples of more traditional companies, but a full-participant, dancing choreography that is stylistically varied and as demanding as that of soloists.

"I received a contract from American Ballet Theatre first," Golbin confesses, "but I held out for NYCB, because I loved the repertoire. I adore my roles. With Balanchine, you're never the icing on the side. You're always dancing."

Lynn Garafola is a senior editor of Dance Magazine.