TALLCHIEF RECEIVES NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Maria Tallchief says she doesn't have a career preference for her only granddaughter. But already the four-month-old owns a pair of ballet shoes and allegedly holds her fingers naturally a la Balanchine.

Tallchief couldn't be prouder. Speaking by phone from her home in Chicago, she says she "didn't know anything could be so fulfilling" as baby Alexandra. "When that baby smiles at me, I just melt."

Tallchief, now 74, felt lucky that Alexandra and her mother (Tallchief's only daughter) could accompany her on a fall trip to Washington, D.C. The plane arrived four hours late, but to Tallchief, that just meant more time with the baby. She was also pleased because on September 29 President Clinton and the First Lady was to present her with a national honor: Tallchief, along with ten other American legends, including diva Aretha Franklin and sculptor George Segal, received a 1999 National Medal of Arts.

"I felt really proud to be there," said Tallchief. "I couldn't believe I was sitting just a few feet away from the President of the United States and his wife." This is not the first time Tallchief has been honored by a president--in 1953 President Eisenhower named her Woman of the Year.

But this time wa different. At a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, President Clinton complimented her daughter's poetry (Tallchief's daughter, Elise Paschen, is executive director of the Poetry Society of America), and promised to give his daughter Chelsea a piece of foam rubber that Tallchief had brought to make Chelsea's toe shoes more comfortable. Then, the ultimate happened--Clinton quoted Balanchine. "I almost started to cry," says Tallchief.

It was 1948 when Balanchine formed the New York City Ballet and cast Tallchief as its prima ballerina. She was also his student and his wife. Tallchief still considers Balanchine the greatest choreographer that ever lived and is convinced that her fame is owed all to him. He created the title role in Firebird and the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker for her. For Tallchief, though, it wasn't the roles in themselves that made her a star. It was standing behind Balanchine in the dance studio and trying to emulate his movements.

"He would show us how to walk, how to run, how to present your foot," she says. "He wasn't technical. He would just say things so that your whole body becomes very poetic. Being vulnerable is the most important thing of all, and he taught us how to be vulnerable."

Tallchief has been quite vulnerable lately, albeit in a less desirable way. She has been suffering from stress-related shaking fits since her present husband, Henry D. Paschen, Jr., was imprisoned for tax fraud in June. Although she speaks sweetly about him, she steers the conversation back to Balanchine, who died in 1983.

"People always said Maria never questions," says Tallchief about taking class with Balanchine. "That's because I knew he could produce magic, and I wanted to be part of that magic. It was because of that I became what I did and got to be [at the White House] the other morning. I was thrilled."