Nijinska in action.

The large studio was overflowing with magnificent dancers at work, lifting their legs on high, jumping and turning. Vibrant piano music compelled everyone forward. [] The little dynamo conducting this magical display was clad in black pajamas and had a short, spare length of silver hair. This slightly plump woman of about 60 years was here, there, and everywhere, giving instructions and corrections. Madame Bronislava Nijinska was single-mindedly at work. With an agile spring she was at the pianist's side, defining the tempo with staccato claps while she counted in Russian. Noticing something was missing in the dancers' approach, Nijinska stopped the class and executed the steps herself, showing the necessary exuberance and style. Madame in action was a performance in itself--like a wild horse galloping off, uncatchable. I was enthralled.

Mother had located the ballet studios of Bronislava Nijinska in the yellow pages. It was the fall of 1948; I was 11 years old, and Mother, at my request, had taken me out of boarding school and brought me to Los Angeles so that I could start ballet lessons.

When we had arrived at the studio, a secretary asked us if we wanted to watch a class in progress. Mother and I chimed a "yes," and we were brought to an open doorway where the class led by Nijinska was in full flight. Somehow it was no surprise that this woman, almost always with a lighted cigarette in a long-holder, was the sister of the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky. Bronislava, famous in her youth as an innovative choreographer, also danced in some of her brother's controversial works during the early years of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes when they both were members.

"There are two celebrities here today," the secretary told us. "Vera Ellen, a movie star, and Belita, the extraordinary ice skater, also a movie star." This class she explained, was for professionals. In fact, there were no beginners' classes.

Mother, always ready to improvise, enrolled me in the intermediate-level class taught by Nijinska's daughter, Irina. I immediately noticed that there were very few young girls in my class. Most of the students were young men in their 20s. They were veterans of World War II, the secretary explained. Under the G.I. Bill, these men were entitled to a four-year course of study in a chosen field. They were former soldiers and sailors who had been engaged in a brutal war. Yet when they returned, they only wanted to dance. As the French writer Colette observed, this yearning for grace and beauty after war was a special phenomenon.

By the next year I began to study with Nijinska.

Her barre was pre-set, each day identical to the previous one. And the pianist played the same music for each individual step--always Burgmuller for the grand battement. This was reassuring the way a ceremony, ritual, or familiar breakfast can be. The warming-up process at the barre was continuous with no pauses, preparing us for the center, where Nijinska's imagination soared. The transformation began with the first plie.

For pirouettes, Nijinska believed in starting from a position of strength and maintaining it throughout the turn. A weak start doomed the pirouette before it began. Often she would test a student's tenacity in the preparation by pushing the dancer's arms from above and then below. If the arms flopped or wobbled, Madame's face would reflect disapproval, and she would say imperiously, "No spaghetti!" Then she would ask the student to move her arms. Of course the student couldn't; Madame was a little Russian Rock of Gibraltar.

After adagio and pirouettes came the large jumps, the steps that brought to mind her brother's legendary elevation. With the quality and height of our leaps, we entered the realm of perfume and magic, often to the sounds of Schumann's Carnaval, which Nijinska loved.

Everyone, I believed, was there because they wanted to dance like Nijinsky. The Nijinsky of their dreams. I know I did.

One day Madame took possession of my hand and held it firmly; we were to work in tandem. I was proud she was my partner. She pointed out our destination--the distant corner of the room's diagonal, at least two leviathans long. Desire flooded my heart. The men, with larger and more powerful legs, could reach the other corner of the room with ease. But we would try to do better executing the same combination. An older woman and a child would compete with the boys. Confidence beamed in Nijinska's eyes. Focusing my body's energy, I gathered my inner forces together. Madame called to the pianist, and the odd couple flew forward with sautes and jetes, dashing and leaping. We were in the air. Madame's hand almost had an electrical charge. We were Joint Chiefs of Staff in the middle of a campaign.

Hurray! We did it and we were almost out the door. With sparkling eyes, Madame and I looked at each other and smiled. She had shown me how to triumph, blending muscle strength with desire. This was a feeling I hoped ballet would always give me. Her classes weren't just academic; I learned how to perform.

After each lesson, the students came forward to embrace Madame. Whatever we could or couldn't achieve in class was forgotten. Now we were her precious friends. She hugged each of us warmly as if we were leaving her party.

When I was 16, I met Nijinska again, but this time in Paris after a performance of the Marquis de Cuevas's company. She was its ballet mistress, and I was on tour with the New York City Ballet. Madame embraced me with emotion, holding me for a long moment. I realized she was assessing my back muscles, judging their strength, reading them the way a botanist reads the rings of a tree's trunk. When we disentangled, she laughed. She had read determination in my muscles and was pleased that my body had strengthened.

Mme. Nijinska had given me a fantastic foundation for the work that I loved, and I loved her.

Went to learn more?

Try Bronislava Nijinska: Early Memoirs by Bronislava Nijinska, edited by Jean Rawlinson and Irina Nijinska. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 1992 (reprint edition). 546 pages, paper. $23.95. ISBN: 0-8223-1295-6.

RELATED ARTICLE: Nijinska

In 1965 I found the Oakland Ballet. It was my hope to bring to the stage same of the ballets produced by Serge Diaghilev, founder and director of the Ballets Russes from 1909-1929. His choreographers, George Balanchine, Michel Fokine, Bronislava Nijinska, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Leonid Massine, are legendary. [] In 1978 Massine staged his La Boutique fantasque (1919) and Contes Russes (1917) on Oakland Ballet. He encouraged me in my quest, and so in 1979, Nicholas Beriozoff came to stage Fokine's 1910 piece Scheherazade. [] Of Diaghilev's five choreographers, Nijinska's work was the least seen on the stage after 1929. With her daughter Irina Nijinska's guidance and insight we reconstructed two lost works, Le Train bleu (1924) and Bolero (1928). Our revivals included the choreographer's rarely performed Les Noces (1923) end Les Biches (1924). These reconstructions and revivals were an adventure into the past and a discovery of Nijinska's penetrating, insightful, and savvy look at the human condition. [] Les Noces, with its architectural choreography, distilled the emotional anxiety and joy of an arranged wedding of Russian peasants. Les Biches is a playful look at social mores, etiquette, stereotypes, and unspoken relationships of the 1920s. It is unerring in its style and wit. [] In Le Train bleu, Nijinska turns her artistic eye on glamour, frivolous relationships, and trendy inventions--the box camera, suntan lotion, and sunglasses--to reveal the transparency of society and its participants, in a beach setting. [] Her choreographic observations remain timeless as society repeats itself. Such is the human condition shown in Nijinska's remarkable art.

--Ronn Guidi, Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus, Oakland Ballet

Allegra Kent danced with the New York City Ballet from 1953 to 1983, becoming a principal in 1957. Her autobiography, Once a Dancer, is available from St. Martin's Press.