The Balanchine Trust at ten: building a better future for companies nationwide.

NEW YORK CITY -- On March 30, almost unnoticed, the Balanchine Trust turned ten. There was no celebration, but perhaps it's one of the measures of the trust's success that today it is taken for granted. When the trust was launched four years after George Balanchine's death, under the stewardship of his long-time assistant Barbara Horgan, it was embarking on a journey into the unknown. Its goal: to keep alive -- not just preserve -- this incredible legacy, created by a man who was quite aware that his work might be blown away with the sands of time.

There are other trusts, such as those for Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor. But none have the scope of Balanchine's. Since his death the interest in and respect for Balanchine's work have spread around the world in a way that might have surprised even the choreographer himself. One thinks of the biblical metaphor of the seed which, planted in good soil, brings forth bountiful fruit year after year. It's the job of the trust to see that the soil is properly tended.

Some are still unhappy with the way New York City Ballet performs Balanchine today. There are also those who, every time a Balanchine work is performed by NYCB or others, sigh, "Ah, but you should have seen it when Patty or Suzanne performed it." It is a measure of the trust's success that in the last few years these voices have become muted.

Horgan is modest about her accomplishments and, at 64, is preparing for her own departure by training assistant Beth Barbie to take over. "I have so many good people to help me, and I am only following Mr. B's guidance," she says.

Of the 113 ballets which Balanchine bequeathed to fourteen legatees (primary among them Horgan, Karin von Aroldingen and Tanaquil Le Clercq), some eighty could be staged today, but the remainder have not been reconstructed, Horgan explains. Among the most requested are Concerto Barocco, Serenade and Allegro Brillante and, as companies grow, Stars and Stripes and Western Symphony. At the trust's disposal are about forty stagers with firsthand knowledge of the repertory who, in the time-honored practice of dance, are passing the ballets on from dancer to dancer.

Balanchine was famously willing to share his ballets with young companies. The Joffrey Ballet, for instance, owes much of its early success to Balanchine's largesse. The trust, under Horgan's leadership, has kept alive this generosity of spirit. Elyse Borne, who has been staging Balanchine ballets since 1985, says that Horgan often remarks of less experienced companies: "As long as they want to do it, let them try it." This flexibility also applies to financial arrangements. Licensing fees (good for two years) range from $250 to $15,000. A European company might have to pay a substantial amount for a large work, but the fees for a company like California's Diablo Ballet are kept at rock bottom. "They are small and they don't have any money," says Horgan. "So we try to help them. After all, you can't hang ballets on a wall. Ballets are meant to be performed."

For some large troupes the Balanchine works are integral to their identity. Pacific Northwest Ballet has twenty-five in its repertory. Under the direction of Kent Stowell and Francia Russell (one of the first stagers to whom Balanchine entrusted his work), PNB acquired The Four Temperaments in 1978; this month it performs A Midsummer Night's Dream, in a new production. San Francisco Ballet, with twenty-three ballets, acquired its first, Concerto Barocco, in 1953; and its latest, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, in 1995 because, explains artistic director Helgi Tomasson, SFB "has the dancers to dance this ballet at the level at which it should be performed."

Regional companies owe much of their growth to Balanchine's work, both for the challenges it presents to the dancers and the magic of his name for audiences. Colorado Ballet performed its first Balanchine, Concerto Barocco, in 1991, and in April premiered its sixth, Western Symphony. Sacramento Ballet, with ten ballets, acquired Allegro Brillante the year after former NYCB dancer Ron Cunningham took over as artistic director in 1986. In February, it performed Who Cares? and Serenade. As the seven-year-old, twenty-member Ballet Florida's (Allegro Brillante and Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux) artistic director Mary Hale put it: "This is American ballet; our dancers need to perform it. Besides, with Balanchine you can't be sloppy. There is nothing like it to develop speed and clean lines." Ballet Florida intends to perform Haieff Variations, reconstructed for the 1983 Balanchine Festival, in the future.

Borne, instrumental in developing the Balanchine repertory as ballet mistress for Miami City Ballet and now for SFB, explains how she works as a repetiteur: "I bring videos; I also teach class for at least one week. Beyond the steps, which have to be there, I talk a lot; about Balanchine, about how he taught the piece. I use images, stories, even jokes, to try to re-create, as best as possible, the feeling and the state of mind as I remember them." She is not alone in this approach. When von Aroldingen taught SFB's Leslie Young the second pas de deux of Violin Concerto she wanted her to move closer to her partner. "I didn't quite get it," Young recalls. "Then she told me to imagine that I was on an ocean liner with the man I loved, and we were looking across the water. A fierce wind was blowing, and there was this scarf which enveloped both of us." She has not had trouble nestling up to her partner since.

Horgan has repeatedly said that Balanchine gave her a life and more than that, he gave her a life after his death. She has more than paid back the debt. She has given life to the trust, and it's the trust that gives life to Balanchine's work.