Ideals.

In her profile of the Japanese-born and -trained dancer Koichi Kubo (see cover and pages 64 to 68), Janine Gastineau discusses the long-held concept of the "ideal dancer" that has been handed down from generation to generation. This "ideal" tended to compartmentalize dancers into rigid categories--short dancers, for example, were condemned to a professional life of dancing character roles. We might remember that had Baryshnikov, a short dancer, stayed in Russia, where he did not meet the Soviet ideal of the danseur noble, his career would unquestionably have taken a very different direction.

But these days practice and perceptions are changing, opening opportunities for many talented artists. Today, the makeup of many ballet companies reflects the fact that not all dancers are cut from the same piece of cloth to the same pattern. This is an encouraging shift: It allows the use of a greater number of artistic perspectives, as well as the ability to address the needs of new, larger, more diverse audiences.

Good dancers still share essential qualities: artistry, sensitivity, and intelligence--qualities that transcend physical characteristics. Good dancers also need musicality, dramatic ability, flexibility, suppleness, coordination, stamina, endurance, muscular strength, and strong lungs. But the old "standards" regarding stature, nationality, race, and--to some degree in these days of cross-gender dancing--sex are becoming secondary considerations. American modern dance has always been far more flexible about using a variety of body types, and yet modern dance has historically had its share of typecasting as well. The idea of a "Graham dancer" is just as strong as that of the "Balanchine dancer."

But we have inherited the history of ballet, as Gastineau writes, from the courts of Europe, many of whose conventions (the codified technique, for example) should be preserved. As those courts recede into the shadows of history, so too have some of the less inclusive aspects of their legacy. The ideal of the so-called Balanchine dancer is responsible for discouraging many talented dancers, yes, although I should mention that the original Balanchine-style dancer, Felia Doubrovska, was considered very tall and thin for her day. When Rebecca Wright, smaller and shorter than her contemporaries, studied at Balanchine's School of American Ballet, she was told that she would never make it as a ballerina, so she moved over to Joffrey, where she became one of the most beloved ballerinas of her generation. Over the years, the Balanchine aesthetic, as we came to know it, was developed for a very specific use--to accommodate the increased speed needed for the founder's brand of neoclassicism. That long, lean, racehorse look was never intended for all dancers everywhere.

During its glory days, Joffrey Ballet helped us see the beauty of casting dancers in non-traditional ways. Edward Stierle, for example, was a superb technician whose small stature didn't matter. Sasha Anawalt, in her exemplary company biography, says that Robert Joffrey, because of his own diminutive height, was sensitive to dancers with his build and sought new ways to incorporate them into his company's eclectic rep.

I suspect there have always been great dancers who bent the rules of the ideal body type. Nureyev! Just look at his old films. Erik Bruhn, one of the greatest danseurs nobles of all time, had a large head that some considered disproportionate to the rest of his body. The first glorious Soviet ballerina to capture the imagination of the West, Galina Ulanova, had a rib structure that, to be unkind, reminded some of a large birdcage. Even the great Fonteyn, critics claimed, was a weak technician, but still possessed phenomenal stage presence. Gelsey Kirkland, a legendary Giselle, began life as a Balanchine ballerina, moved over to ABT, and took desirable thinness to death-defying dimensions. (And in those days, twenty years ago, anorexia was not discussed except in hushed whispers--a far cry from the greater honesty and openness encountered today.)

Last summer, the tragic death of a young woman who had danced with Boston Ballet was inaccurately reported when newspapers across the country attributed her death, incorrectly, to dieting. I received many letters sharply criticizing both the dance field as well as the magazine for perpetuating the "myth" of the ideal dancer. As it turned out, what we may have done wrong over the years by showing "ideal" dancers was not accompanying each beautiful image with the reminder that, to achieve this same degree of perfection in a decidedly imperfect world, you have to commit to a lifetime of discipline, hard work, and sacrifice. Just so: In this issue, New York City Ballet soloist Zippora Karz, who has lived with insulin-dependent diabetes for years (see pages 74-77), is an inspiration to all performers with certain physical challenges that may, in the past, have been viewed as roadblocks to success.

In addition to the current outpouring of Russian dancers, American stages now have an abundance of beautifully trained dancers from South America, Cuba, Korea, China, and Japan--countries that until fairly recently did not have strong links with classical dance. Koichi Kubo, one of ballet's star presences when at home in Japan, has cast his lot in with ours as well--and we are all richer for the experience.