A biography of Tanaquil LeClercq?

[perky]

After reading both the Gottlieb and the Teachout books on Balanchine I'm more besotted than ever with Tanaquil LeClercq. Gottlieb's book in particular has two gorgeous photos of her that I had never seen before. It really makes me wish their was a biography out about her. But at the same time I'm almost glad one doesn't exist.

She lived her life with such grace and discretion. I don't believe she has ever publicly stated anything with regards to her polio or her life with and after Balanchine. I admire that tremendously. And also her courage and dignity. Would a biography take away that dignity? I wonder.

What do others think?

[Michael]

How much of her correspondence still exists and in whose hands? Her letters to Jerome Robbins which Deborah Jowett quotes in her current Robbins biography make the best possible reading.

If there is a sufficient number of such writings they would be well worth publication, without more, simply as her correspondence. If there isn't, one wonders what the materials for a biography of Leclerq would be. Other people's recollections, I'd think, and within a limited period. Once she becomes disabled by Polio, it is -- after all -- necessarily an outwardly uneventful life. The inner odyssey, if it is recorded, might be fascinating, or might not; or might need to be kept private if it was too laden with inner grief. Only someone who knows the materials could make a better informed judgment.

[Dale]

Several of her letters to various friends have been published in Ballet Review.

[Leigh Witchel]

I think there's definitely enough material out there. Like most biographies, the quality depends on the author as well as the subject.

[Farrell Fan]

It's too bad Le Clercq didn't write her autobiography. She was a charming writer, as evidenced by her letters and her two published books -- Mourka: The Autobiography of a Cat, and The Ballet Cook Book. The latter, in addition to recipes and thumbnail portraits of contributors, has many of her own anecdotes. Yes, I would like to see a biography -- I have a feeling the period after her polio was not all gloom and doom by any means.

[Thalictum]

The Le Clercq estate retains an enormous amount of archival material on her -- more than enough for a bio.

[Helene]

LeClerq also taught at the Dance Theater of Harlem, school, so she wasn't a total shut-in after she contracted polio.

[canbelto]

She was also close to Arthur Mitchell, and judging from the autobiographies by Allegra Kent and Edward Villela, deeply loved by her colleagues. I read the Jerome Robbins biography and Tanny's letters are the best. What a witty, vibrant, talented woman.

[Thalictum]

Yes, and a willful and manipulative one at times -- a true prima ballerina!

[tempusfugit]

"Willful and manipulative"?

Those are two words I have never heard applied to LeClercq under any circumstances. Almost any NYCB ballerina since the company's beginnings could be more accurately characterized by those adjectives than LeClercq, including Hayden, Farrell, Kirkland, and Watts, to name four very dissimilar women.

What exactly are you referring to?

[Thalictum]

I'm referring to comments any number of people who knew her have made to me, among them her own mother, as well as comments in published interviews by colleagues, as well as her letters written to Pat McBride in the late 1940s which were published in Ballet Review three years ago.

[tempusfugit]

I'm referring to comments any number of people who knew her have made to me, among them her own mother, as well as comments in published interviews by colleagues, as well as her letters written to Pat McBride in the late 1940s which were published in Ballet Review three years ago.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not having read the letters to Pat McBride, I can't comment on them except to observe that LeClercq would at the time have been eighteen or nineteen, not an age usually noted for emotional or professional maturity.

Having read many comments in published interviews by her colleagues, and never having read anything vaguely resembling "willful and manipulative", I suppose that leaves third-party "he said, she said" anecdotes.

I cannot imagine defining a "prima ballerina" by the words "willful" and "manipulative".

[Leigh Witchel]

Kschessinska?

[Thalictum]

I've watched many prima ballerinas at very close range and being willfull and manipulative would seem to be a sine qua non toward achieving prima status -- along with many other qualities.

I repeat I have talked to many first hand sources including Edith Le Clercq -- hardly a third hand source.

[tempusfugit]

Kschessinska?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Certainly she was those things, according to all accounts, but were they her most interesting or salient characteristics? the definition of her? most accounts also agree that she was a great dancer...

[tempusfugit]

Having met a few ballerinas myself, I think that Patricia McBride, Kyra Nichols, Merle Park, Jennifer Penney, Janie Parker, and Lis Jeppesen--to name a few--seem to have become ballerinas without either willfulness or manipulation.

[Leigh Witchel]

[Moderator beanie on]

I think the greater issue of ballerinas and "wilfull and manipulative" deserves a thread of its own. So click above to continue that discussion.

Lets continue here with a discussion of LeClercq and a potential biography.

[Moderator beanie off]

[Thalictum]

I give up. Everyone is free to believe what they want. I will put my material together and produce at least an essay on Le Clercq. I hope it will do her justice.

[Nanatchka]

I've watched many prima ballerinas at very close range and being willfull and manipulative would seem to be a sine qua non toward achieving prima status -- along with many other qualities.

I repeat I have talked to many first hand sources including Edith Le Clercq -- hardly a third hand source.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I would hardly take Edith Le Clercq as an unbiased source. One's mother has a particular view of one gained over years which include those typically marked by willfullness and manipulation. Further, those qualities may directly be drawn out by a parent, in response to the parental personality. One can draw the conclusion that Madame Mother was speaking to you in confidence, or one can draw the conclusion that she was content to broadcast such remarks about her daughter. [As a last aside, I would just mention that someone who cannot do what she wants to do (dance) or move herself as she chooses (being paralyzed) might understandably develop some compensatory character traits involving will and manipulation, and might particularly feel free to express in the presence of close family. However, I have no knowledge whatsoever about the actual case at hand, other than what I have read and what I saw. In the face of profound frustration, if you want to read her circumstances as such, Tanny was graceful.)]

[Thalictum]

Did I say I was taking Edith Le Clercq, or anyone else, as an unbiased source? No. I said she was hardly a third-hand source. I don't take any source as unbiased.

Le Clercq's relationship to her mother and father was undoubtedly complicated, as is everyone's.

[canbelto]

I dont know LeClercq at all, but I think it's kind of dreamy to think of ballerinas as these perfect, devoted people. They're human, and likely to have flaws just like anyone else. I mean, any biography of Balanchine will likely include not only his undeniable attributes but also his possessiveness of his ballerinas and his complicated personal life. I think it's fair ground, and I think a mother's opinion is as "unbiased" as any source is likely to be. Plus, I always cringe at the talk of "unbiased sources." No one is "unbiased." I'm not unbiased -- ask me my opinion of GWB for instance, and I can't even give an unbiased answer.