Who do you honor?

[Diana]

I am looking in my NYCB book 'Tributes' and a contributor mentions the heroes of ballet, the corps. I agree that some of members have made sacrifices and choices that affect career for entire lives. Principals and solists dance and are known on stage but what about (I think Americans call 'unsung heroes'?) the shades who make ghostly patterns and wilis whose presence is so cold and ethereal? You cannot have nutcracker in winter without snowflakes or else plot becomes messy.

So who do you think deserves the best title? Etoiles are the stars, but the corps is the night sky.

Diana L.

[artist]

for me, it's anyone who stands out. I see always a few corps members that reach out to me, though they blend in with the rest, they have a different and special quality that I like. And I think it is the soloists' job to enthrall the audience.

And yes, we all know, without the corps there would not be a ballet. They are the ones who make the soloist look better as they are like the emphasizing background to a painting.

But then the soloist has been through those many years of corps work....

so I think i would 'honor' the soloist.

[Ray]

So many corps members and soloists in NYCB could be honored for how they represent (or represented) Balanchine's vision. I think, for instance, of Renee Estopinal (retired in the 1980s?)--she used her legs in a way that I would characterize as quintessentially Balanchinian--the whole leg strongly articulated from the hip, if that makes sense, even in high extensions. And she and Wilhemina Frankfurt as the soloist pair in Agon!--I feel honored to have witnessed that, as a young person, in many NYCB performances of the early 80s.

[Farrell Fan]

Perhaps because I was more familiar with NYCB than with other companies, for me there was never an anonymous mass there called "the corps," but a company of individual dancers never to be forgotten. In addition to those mentioned by Ray, and in no chronological order, there were Nina Federova, Toni Bentley, Linda Homek, Darla Hoover, Teresa Reyes, Carole Divet, Shawn Stevens... the longer I go on, the more likely I am to leave out people I shouldn't, including such male dancers as Hermes Conde and Espen Giljane. So I'll just stop, with the corps dancer who for me remains unmatched in both the Balanchine and Robbins reps: the delectable Delia Peters.