American classicism and the Regional Ballet Movement: The lifetime legacy of Barbara Weisberger
Girls! Point through your toes," yelled the woman. Pacing around the studio, located in the basement of the Peabody Institute, she eyed a dozen girls wearing royal blue leotards and pink tights. "Point your feet! And for goodness sakes, turn out."
Barbara Weisberger, who celebrated her 80th birthday last March, serves as the artistic advisor to the dance department at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. But long before that, she became George Balanchine's first pupil. "Either by design or by happenstance my life skirted around Balanchine's and traced the whole growth of American classicism," she said.
Weisberger tells the story causally. "I was five and a half years old, studying with a local teacher in New York," Weisberger recalls. Her own pupils - adjusting bobby pins in their buns or placing a leg on the barre to stretch - listen intently.
"When she read that the School of American Ballet was opening, she called and told them that she'd like to bring her student." The dancers exchanged glances. They know that today the School of American Ballet (SAB) remains one of the world's most competitive ballet training programs.
Weisberger continued. "They told my teacher that they didn't have any children's classes yet, but she didn't take no for an answer. The director finally gave in. It was 1934, and I was the only child at the time. Balanchine was rehearsing "Serenade" for its debut."
As Weisberger grew older she continued her ballet training at the Metropolitan Opera School. But by the time Weisberger graduated high school in 1942 and war raged throughout Europe, chances of continuing her career in dance were slim. Nowadays a ballet dancer in Weisberger's position would be able to audition for an array of companies throughout the United States and Europe. "It was a much different world back then," Weisberger said. "The way we know things with a company in Boston, San Francisco, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and all through the middle of the United States was not the way it was back then."
Twenty years later-after earning a degree from the University of Delaware and holding a teaching position in Pennsylvania, Weisberger found herself at a cocktail party at the home of Lincoln Kirsten, Balanchine's co-founder of the of NYCB, discussing the very problem that had kept her from pursuing dance as a career. "Mr. Balanchine told us that it was very sad that we were turning out more and more trained and talented dancers than there was room for his company to absorb."
Balanchine pointed out that all of Russia's major cities had schools with corresponding companies. "I went up to him and said, 'You know, Mr. Balanchine, if you're serious about all this, the place this has to start is Philadelphia,'" Weisberger said. "He said to me, 'You must do it.'"
The Pennsylvania Ballet -- situated in Philadelphia - held its first performance in spring 1964 under Weisberger's direction. After two years of performing with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera, the Pennsylvania Ballet presented its first independent performance. This performance initiated the ballet world's decentralization from the stages of New York City.
"The world as we know it with the proliferation of companies all over the world began with the Pennsylvania Ballet," Weisberger said. "We were in the vanguard of that movement. It started the growth of indigenous or homegrown American ballet."
After Weisberger's work with Pennsylvania Ballet came to an end in 1982, she invested her time in building up the Carlisle Project. The project offered budding choreographers the opportunity to work with new composers in Carlisle, home of the famed Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB). "When I started this project, I thought that's the place to be," Weisberger said.
When Weisberger came to Peabody in 2001, she set out to restructure its dance program. Working with the program's director and modem dance teacher Carol Bartlett, Weisberger brought in Melissa Stafford, a CPYB trained teacher. According to Weisberger, one of Peabody's biggest challenges is training dancers in a city lacking a professional company, to which young dancers can aspire to join.
"Baltimore is a city that does not have a professional company, and in some in some ways a professional company becomes a beacon, and if that beacon isn't there, the city becomes a little lax, "Weisberger said, "When I came to Baltimore, people told me it was not a dance city. I said, 'Don't tell me that; cities are not dancers, people are.'"
In her advising role, Weisberger travels to Baltimore to teach and rehearse Peabody dancers a handful of times a year.
Whispers travel through the hallways when students know that Weisberger will be watching classes or rehearsals. "She's going to tell us that we're not pointing our feet hard enough," students admonish one another.
But after a lecture on tendus, it isn't unlikely that Weisberger will stop class and delve into a ballet history lesson. "Class, did I ever tell you about how Balanchine went about choreographing "Serenade?"
Patrice Hutton is a junior at Johns Hopkins University, where she studies ballet at the Peabody Institute, teaches ballet through the Homewood Arts Program, writes for the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, and is active in Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND). Patrice grew up dancing with the Metropolitan Ballet of Wichita.