June 15-20, 2010
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This June, the Kennedy Center brings back Ballet Across America, which first graced the Opera House stage two summers ago. For 2010, this biennial celebration will feature nine ballet companies from all corners of the U.S. performing in three mixed repertory programs. Among this year's participants are Houston Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Tulsa Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Ballet Arizona, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and my own company, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet. With the talents of so many choreographers, composers, and dancers to be enjoyed over one week's time, Kennedy Center audiences are in for a real treat of discovery.

My company will be performing Monumentum Pro Gesualdo & Movements for Piano and Orchestra – two ballets that were created independently, but are now typically performed together. Both works feature the choreography of George Balanchine and the music of Igor Stravinsky. Their pairing has been a part of my company's repertory since 2001, though I first staged them in 1995 for the Kennedy Center's 25th anniversary season.

On Monumentum Pro Gesualdo

Balanchine premiered Monumentum in 1960 for a program celebrating the 100th anniversary of Italy's unification. (That program also included his Donizetti Variations, which was part of my company's March engagement earlier this year.) The ballet was originally made on Diana Adams and Conrad Ludlow. Costumed in white practice clothes, Monumentum is danced in three sections and features an ensemble of six couples who frequently echo the lead couple's movements.

For the score, Stravinsky re-orchestrated the madrigals of Italian composer Don Carlo Gesualdo (c. 1560-1613) to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his birth. Stravinsky's music always has so many fascinating layers, but a madrigal is a complex musical form in its own right. Popular during the Renaissance, madrigals are love poems set to vocal music and filled with unexpected harmonies and "word paintings" – musical devices used to convey a word's emotional context, such as love, pain, death, or ecstasy. The purpose of a madrigal was to signify the Renaissance era's core values of true love and living for the sake of others.

Though Stravinsky's score for Monumentum is instrumental, his music still resonates with these emotional meanings – and Balanchine's choreography signifies them visually. There are moments in the ballet where true love shines through, in simple movements and graceful gestures. The boy gently takes the girl's hand and kisses it, for example. But as with all Balanchine ballets, it's beautiful without being overly affected, and without needing to establish any specific relationship story between these two people.

Gesualdo's music – and Stravinsky's interpretation of it – is so heavenly and serene. But the history books tell us that Gesualdo murdered his wife and her lover, yet his noble status exempted him from punishment. It shocks me that music this calm could come from the mind of such a dark soul! Or perhaps the music was his penance.

On Movements for Piano and Orchestra

Though it's the second ballet in the sequence, Movements was the first one I learned and performed. I danced its premiere in April 1963, though that was not the original plan. Balanchine had initially cast Diana Adams in the lead ballerina role, partnered by Jacques d'Amboise.

As I write in my autobiography, two weeks before opening night, Diana had learned she was pregnant and was confined to bed rest. Balanchine was about to cancel the premiere until Jacques suggested that the ballet might be saved if they could teach me Diana's part. I was still only a corps member in the company, but Balanchine acquiesced. So Jacques took me to Diana's apartment one evening to learn the choreography.

The experience left my head spinning; no recording of Stravinsky's atonal score existed, and along with the rest of the world, I had never heard the music before. Jacques and Diana grunted, clapped, and sang to help me "hear" the music and get through the steps. And Diana's living room – complete with couch, coffee table, and slippery parquet floor – was a fraction of the size of a real studio. But after a couple of hours, things started to click, and the next day Balanchine scheduled full rehearsals with me, Jacques, and the six corps girls.

Two days before the premiere, however, I was still unnerved and unsure. Everything was happening so fast, and there had been no time for me to absorb the complete world of the ballet. My feelings of inadequacy compelled me to approach Balanchine and say, "I don't think you should let me do this ballet." (Can you imagine?) But he replied, "Oh dear, you let me be the judge." That brief exchange turned out to be a pivotal moment for us, as it marked the beginning of our lifelong trust in each other. I stopped second-guessing myself, put my total faith in his judgment, and performed the ballet opening night in an all-Stravinsky program. Lo and behold, audiences and critics loved Balanchine's latest creation.

Balanchine's highly charged choreography is the exacting physical counterpart to Stravinsky's complex, landmark score. Indeed, none of us had ever danced to something so electrifyingly charged before. Stravinsky filled his music with split-second rhythms and ever-changing meter, and Balanchine's steps matched that lightning-fast frenzy note-for-note. In fact, Balanchine was once quoted as saying, "Nothing gave me greater pleasure afterwards than Stravinsky's saying the performance ‘was like a tour of a building for which I had drawn the plans, but never explored the result.'"

As difficult as it is to dance, Movements is equally a challenge to teach. If the music were more classical, dancers could hum the melody to help reinforce the steps. However, there are few places in Movements that you can latch on to as anchors. So I teach my dancers the counts I first learned, now ingrained in my body, but I do it very slowly at first. Of course, I warn my dancers that eventually it will be 10 times faster! For all its seemingly wild energy, Stravinsky's music has a very precise structure, and laying that foundation is the key to everything else.

On putting the two ballets together

I can't say exactly what inspired Balanchine to merge Monumentum and Movements together, other than that they both feature the music of Stravinsky, they're both white costumes, and they're both rather short. But in 1965 he revived Monumentum and had me perform both ballets back-to-back. The two had never been staged in tandem prior to this, but they've been performed as a unit ever since. A brief lowering of the curtain signifies the transition.

Danced together, Monumentum and Movements are a revelation in stylistic contrast: the former is so classical and pure, while the latter is so modern and stark. I found great joy in moving from one style to the other in a matter of seconds. Plus, audiences are treated to completely opposite sides of the Balanchine-Stravinsky spectrum in such a short amount of time. With the dream-like perfume of Monumentum still hanging in the air, Movements charges onto the stage and knocks the wind out of everyone. The juxtaposition is just so palpable and invigorating – just as Balanchine knew it would be.

On the chance to see old friends during Ballet Across America

June's performances will give me the opportunity to reconnect with some dear friends who are now artistic directors of their own companies: Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, Peter Boal, and Ib Anderson.

Jean-Pierre, who leads North Carolina Dance Theatre, is married to Patricia McBride – a wonderful dancer who I shared a close friendship at City Ballet, as her dressing room was right next to mine. I'm looking forward to seeing both of them again during the celebration. North Carolina Dance Theatre will follow The Suzanne Farrell Ballet on Program A with Jean-Pierre's Shindig, featuring live bluegrass music by the Greasy Beans.

Peter Boal, artistic director of Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet, was also once a principal dancer with City Ballet. I taught him Chaconne during our brief overlapping tenures there, and later I invited him to perform in my staging of Mozartiana for the Kennedy Center's 25th anniversary season. Peter was also a featured dancer with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in 2001, and we continue to have a dialogue. I'd love to conduct a partnership with his company in the future, where I get to work with his dancers and vice-versa. Pacific Northwest Ballet will perform Benjamin Millepied's 3 Movements on Program B.

I also have a Mozartiana connection with Ib Anderson from Ballet Arizona – he originated the ballet with me in 1981. Ib joined City Ballet in 1980 after dancing with the Royal Danish Ballet for many years; Balanchine soon cast him opposite me in Mozartiana. In my autobiography, I write about how I was initially concerned with Ib's height – he was not as tall as most other men I had danced with – but Balanchine felt Ib was the perfect stature. Perhaps this was because the shorter Balanchine saw a little of himself in the male lead. During Ballet Across America, Ballet Arizona will perform Ib's new work Diversions on Program B.