Reigning queen at the Royal Ballet.

It was a blustery February afternoon in Manhattan, the sort of day when only gung-ho dance enthusiasts and economy-minded season ticket holders venture out for a matinee. But on this particular day, a fairly standard New York City Ballet program featuring George Balanchine's Swan Lake, Pavane, and Symphony in C, had filled the New York State Theater to capacity. This selection, while attractive, was hardly magnetic enough to draw seasoned balletgoers. The cast was another matter. There was a ner Darcey on board, Royal Ballet's twenty-five-year-old Darcey Bussell (rhymes with rustle), who was dancing with NYCB for only five performances. And for ballet cognoscenti, Bussell's appearances easily qualified as midwinter's hottest ticket.

The visit wasn't even Bussell's local debut. A member since 1988 of London's Royal Ballet, where she has been a principal dancer for five years, Bussell had danced Swan Lake and Kenneth MacMillan's one-act Winter Dreams to warm reviews during the Royal's 1991 visit to the Metropolitan Opera House. Bill Deresiewicz praised her "effortless hinging of long, beautiful legs" and her ability to convey "her character's shifting moods through the quality of her movement" [Dance Magazine, November 1991, page 78].

But viewers really took notice when Bussell danced the boldly modern pas de deux in Agon during a guest appearance at NYCB's marathon gala, "Dinner with Balanchine," on June 27, 1993. Clive Barnes described her Agon Pas de Deux with Lindsay Fischer as "one of the most impressive Balanchinean performances in years" [Dance Magazine, September 1993, page 71].

Known for tidy footwork and a well-bred reserve, British ballerinas aren't usually credited with the athleticism or high-density energy that Balanchine choreography demands. But there was Bussell, with her amazing, loosehipped arabesque and luxuriously long legs, amplifying the well-known steps so that they appeared at once familiar and utterly new. It was Balanchine through a freshly cut prism, and audiences were thrilled.

Those who watched Bussell dance on that snowy winter afternoon eight months later were not disappointed either. Partnered by Robert Lyon, she stepped joyously onstage for the Second Movement of Symphony in C looking as if there was no place in the world she would rather be. Her dancing was radiant and very pure, the movements exquisitely slow, drawn-out, and just a touch exotic during the oboe solo.

With her lavish extensions and hyperflexible feet, she exuded a lushness and softness that in no way marred her clarity or form. She took her time with the music right to the end, dancing a noticeable beat behind NYCB speed demons Merrill Ashley, Yvonne Borree, and Zippora Karz in the final movement. But that hardly mattered. As one reviewer aptly noted, Bussell both stood out and fit in.

She is, in fact, no Balanchine novice; she began dancing his works soon after she joined the Royal. (Former NYCB dancer Patricia Neary had set the works on the company.) In recent years the Royal has bolstered its Balancine offerings, no doubt in response to Bussell's obvious talents. Besides Agon and Symphony in C, she's danced Stravinsky Violin Concerto, the "Rubies" section of Jewels, Serenade, Terpsichore in Apollo, and Ballet Imperial in London. "What a killer," she says of the last. "It's one of the most exhausting things I've ever done."

As the English critics tell it, Bussell took naturally to Balanchine from her first role. "When I started doing it, people said it seemed right for me," she says. "But I didn't know what I was doing differently from the others."

Still, performing in New York City in the incubator of the Balanchine style was, for Bussell, a revelation. "I thought, Wow, that's what it's meant to look like," she says. "It's definitely a look. They're all so used to Balanchine at NYCB. They understand what it's all about. It's in the atmosphere. Even in class the energy they have is different. They use much wider positions, with the arms wider and legs wider, than we do. At the Royal we learn to be more lyrical. We'll be much more in front of ourselves, more contained. But they use more of an attack. Just from rehearsing you pick it up.

"Every company has its own style," she adds, noting that she's also enjoyed her guest stints with Paris Opera Ballet and Frankfurt Ballet. "I love being able to travel, see new things, and try different styles of dance. It keeps you from getting satisfied, from that kind of comfortable feeling."

And that, it seems, pretty much sums up Bussell's aspirations for the time being. In other words, look for her to return to NYCB for short visits in future seasons. But she seems unlikely at this point to jump ship and abandon the home team back in London for a major injection of Balanchine any time soon. "I never want to get typecast," she says. "I want to be able to do quick things and slow things. I never want to be set as one kind of dancer." She pauses. "I want to do everything."

Bussell's immense talent and pliant body, coupled with the infectious blend of innocence and sensuality she projects, would no doubt have delighted Balanchine. (In fact, the ballerina she most calls to mind is Suzanne Farrell.) Ironically, during her February visit to New York, Bussell shared a dressing room at the State Theater with Darci Kistler, the last baby ballerina to be anointed by Balanchine. In a post-rehearsal chat in the Darci/Darcey dressing room, Bussell is down-to-earth, unassuming, and a bit reserved. The unspoken impression she leaves is that interviews are a bit silly. She answers questions politely, pleasantly, and thoughtfully in her low, quiet voice and flat London accent but doesn't volunteer much more. She never mentions, for example, that she worked on a book, The Young Dancer (Dorling Kindersley), published in June.

Dressed in slim brown trousers and a T-shirt, her straight brown hair knotted atop her head and thin gold hoops in her ears, Bussell looks like an off-duty ballerina, but without the exaggerated posture or affected mannerisms some dancers display. She likes New York--her parents flew over to see her dance with NYSB--and enjoys going out with friends and shopping, particularly at Bloomingdale's. "They've got the most amazing range of everything, and it's cheaper than in London," she says. For all her devotion to her white-hot career, she clearly has made a point of having a life offstage.

"You've got to be able to cut off from the ballet and relax, I believe, or you have anxiety dreams at night, worrying about what you're going to dance the next day, going over every little detail," she explains. "I like going to the cinema, going for walks, going to the country. And I have a lot of friends outside the ballet, so I know what's going on around me. So many ballets we do deal with what happens around you, what goes on in life, and you can't grow as an artist if you don't know what's going on. It's very easy to become selfish and narrow-minded, and see ballet as the only thing in life. But there's lots more."

Bussell's life, however, has revolved tightly around ballet for a dozen years. A native of London, she began Saturday morning classes at the age of five, but didn't become serious about her training until she auditioned for White Lodge, the Royal Ballet Lower School, at thirteen. Since students routinely join the school at eleven or twelve, Bussell had a hard time keeping up. "I thought I'd made a mistake," she recalls. And, while blessed with a flexible back and huge extension, she had to work doubly hard to learn to control and strengthen what she called "my wobbly body."

Hard work, and her considerable raw talent, paid off handsomely. She attracted the attention of the late Kenneth MacMillan, who, without her knowledge, cast her in a school performance of his Concerto in her next-to-last year. Upon graduation, she joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, now Birmingham Royal Ballet, where she remained for just one season before being spirited back to London as a Royal Ballet soloist. Again, MacMillan had played godfather, plucking her from the corps for the leading role of Princess Rose in his new version of Prince of the Pagodas.

Being young and chosen from on high, while thrilling, was not entirely without problems. Bussell observed that it was difficult initially to join the Royal as a soloist. She didn't know anyone and, though she doesn't give any specifics, there must have been the inevitable jealousies. Far from arrogant, she says, "I was, like, What am I doing here? Help!"

Bussell's career continued its charmed--and speedy--ascent. The day after Pagodas premiered, she was made a principal dancer. She was just twenty and, as she tells it, flabbergasted by the pace of events. "It was exciting, but I was in shock," she says quietly. "I thought, No way. I wasn't expecting it, if you know what I mean."

The one small cloud over her career has been injuries, including a groin

injury that kept her offstage for a while. More recently, a painful bone spur in her ankle forced her to cancel her appearances during the Royal's visit to New York City this past summer. She recently had surgery to correct it. Bussell, not surprisingly, is philosophical. "Every dancer gets these things," she says simply. "You just deal with it."

For all her gifts, Bussell was also lucky, coming along at the perfect time. Anthony Dowell, who inherited a sadly faded company when he became artistic director in 1986, was on the lookout for bright new ballerinas. And with her leggy five-foot seven-inch frame and exuberant athleticism, Bussell was distinctive as well as talented, a ballerina of the nineties, almost American in appearance and attack. MacMillan once observed that twenty years ago Bussell would probably not even have been accepted into the Royal Ballet School, where petite ballerinas in the Margot Fonteyn mold were still the rule.

But with the Royal, as with NYCB, Bussell has both stood out and fit in quite nicely. Britain's foremost Balanchine ballerina is best known on her home turf for dramatic roles in full-length ballets, including Swan Lake, La Bayadere, Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Mayerling, and, most recently, Dowell's theatrical new production of The Sleeping Beauty, in which she danced Aurora in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. All that's missing, it seems, is Giselle, and that will come when the ballet returns to the Royal rep, Bussell says confidently.

Along the way, she's been partnered by some of the company's best men, including Jonathan Cope, Adam Cooper, and Irek Mukhamedov. Zoltan Solymosi, the dashing young Hungarian-born principal, is her most frequent partner and a favorite--"He has the right physique for me," she says--though she enjoys changing partners. "There's more of a tension," she explains.

Where does the biggest challenge lie for a dancer who has tackled everything from "the main ruby" in "Rubies," as she puts it, to Odette-Odile in Swan Lake? Bussell answers without missing a beat: "It's easy to work on your technique and to get things right. But to be able to portray a person you're not while you're dancing is hard. To be believable to the audience is very hard. You want them to be wrapped into the whole plot, like at the cinema."

Costumes help, of course, particularly in a role like Manon. "When you get on the stage in the lights and you're wearing this amazing eighteenth-century gown and wig, you can be in that century and play that part," she says.

Still, Bussell sometimes worries that audiences are less likely to believe her stage character because of her age: people say, 'She's twenty-five. And she's got lots to learn.' I remember Kenneth would make fun. He'd say, 'You've obviously never been in love, Darcey; you won't know how to portray this.' And I would say, 'Hang on a minute, how do you know that?'" She chuckles and adds, "But I think if you've got a good eye, you can watch things and understand things. And I enjoy acting people I'm not."

Bussell believes that there's acting in Balanchine's plotless ballets as well, though of a very different sort. "A ballet like Agon is quite sexual," she says. "The movements are very physical, especially in the pas de deux. To be able to get that across, but not obviously, is hard. You can't go out there and--" Bussell stretches her face in a mock leer.

"I like to be able to look the audience straight in the face, which you get to do a lot in Balanchine," she continues. "I like being able to look my partner straight in the face, too. There's a kind of energy when two people look at each other."

It all contributes to one of the things Bussell likes best about dancing--the appreciation of the audience. "You can be dancing and forget there are people watching you," she says. "But in the end, when they applaud, it kind of shows you what you've been working for." She pauses. "Being onstage--it's just a magical atmosphere."