|
 Not a
Fairy Tale
By Ann
Murphy
Marina Eglevsky shares her life story, from baby ballerina to
gypsy dancer to teacher and healer
Marina
Eglevsky was born to ballet royalty. Her Russian father, André
Eglevsky, had a classical style of supreme elegance and was
regarded as the premier male dancer of his era. He trained
with such ballet legends as Olga Preobrajenskaya, Nikolai
Legat, and Enrico Cecchetti and starred in various
incarnations of the Ballet Russe. Her mother, Leda Anchutina,
born into a family of artists, was a favorite of Michel
Fokine’s and later of Balanchine’s. But Marina’s evolution as
a dancer was as full of obstacles as opportunities. Finding
her own path became the driving force of the young woman’s
life. In this interview, she shares her story for the first
time in print.
Dancing seems to be in your blood. What’s your family’s
background?
Marina
Eglevsky:
My mother was born in Siberia, where her grandfather was a set
designer for a large opera company. They traveled a lot out of
the country, and because there were dancers in every opera
troupe, my mother was able to take classes on the road. The
Russian Revolution broke out while they were on tour, which
meant they couldn’t get back into the country. They had
nothing. But the opera kept together and worked in China,
Japan, and got bookings in the United States. Eventually it
toured the West Coast. By the time they all got to California,
the tour was finished and the family was stranded in
L.A.
It’s there that my mother found Michel Fokine and studied with
him, becoming his protégée, while my grandmother made costumes
for his productions.
At some
point my mother heard about Balanchine and took off for New
York. It was the period before Balanchine had a company, when
after class [at the School of American Ballet] he would say,
“Anyone who wants to stay, stay. I’d like to practice some
steps.” He’d experiment on the students, and that formed into
the workshop where he created Serenade, Concerto Barocco,
Allegro Brillante. My mom was the Late Girl in Serenade
because she came in late one day. (She was always late.)
Balanchine adored her.
My father
was coming and going from
Europe,
where he first knew Mr. B [as Balanchine was often called],
and somewhere in there my parents met. By the time I was born
they were dancing with the Ballet Russe. Then my father got a
contract with New York City Ballet and they decided to settle
in the
U.S.,
although they left me with my grandmother for the first year
and a half. I always knew that our family
 was a ballet family.
There wasn’t anything else but ballet. I was taken to the
theater every day and allowed to run around. I was always
backstage. I started school in first grade, but I was
constantly being pulled out for tours or to go wherever my
father guested.
Was
it lonely?
ME:
No, everybody in NYCB was so friendly. When I was little,
dancers would baby-sit—mostly Melissa Hayden. Maria Tallchief
occasionally took me to the beach in Monte Carlo—we spent a
bit of time there. So no, I don’t remember being lonely. Even
though I didn’t have many friends, I was always around people.
My mother and father created a school while my father was
still dancing, and that was in our house in Massapequa, Long
Island. At about age 7 I was allowed to be in class, which was
every day during the week and Saturday all day. My father soon
created a performing group. Later he began a youth company for
children, which rehearsed on Sunday, and I was in that. So
dancing happened every day.
When
did you begin to dance professionally?
I remember
graduating into the professional company—I think I was
underage—I must have been about 12. But already by 12 I had
started to feel I needed something more. Something was itching
inside me. My parents wanted me to perform, go to school and
travel with them. Almost every weekend we had a performance. I
was saturated with dance. When my father guested and did
interviews he’d present me, and I’d have to dance. I couldn’t
put it in my own words, but I wanted a break. So I started
applying myself a little bit more in school. I started
sneaking away from
School
of
American Ballet
and taking classes at American Ballet Theatre—the “Enemy.”
What
happened?
By the time
I was 13, things started to get really bad. Although I was
being groomed for New York City Ballet, I wanted to expand
beyond Balanchine. I was interested in contemporary roles,
though I didn’t really know what that meant. It all came to a
crisis as I began to find places to stay in the city or come
home late. [My parents] started to try to hold m e back from
roaming. Since Mr. Balanchine and my parents were friends,
they would discuss me, and Mr. Balanchine said, “Put her in
the company. I want her in the company.” I was being handed a
contract to NYCB, but I’d been taking five classes a day at
ABT and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Robert Joffrey called my mother
and asked if I could join the Joffrey. I remember being in a
state of panic. I didn’t even know what the Joffrey was. I
felt like I was being sold. Then Agnes de Mille insisted—insisted—that
I [dance with her], and I was packed off to learn all these
interesting things, but it wasn’t where I wanted to be.
Then I
heard about a company called the Harkness Ballet. I got myself
to a performance and that was it. During intermission I ran
into the lobby and asked, “Where’s the director?” I went right
up to this big guy, [choreographer] Brian Macdonald, and said,
“Will you please give me a contract? Please, please, please,
please, please?” He said, “Oh, I know who you are. But Rebekah
Harkness only takes dancers from the school. Let me talk to
her.” It was arranged for me to go to the school, take class,
learn the rep, and in a few weeks I was in the company. I told
my father, and that was [nearly] the end of our relationship
until the day he died. It was horrible. He was a difficult
man. I had to stay away and I did. That determined my career.
I was 15
just as I joined Harkness and immediately fell in love with
the dancer Salvatore Aiello. [She and Aiello eventually
married.] We did one tour and we were ushered off to be in
permanent residence in Monte Carlo. My father would come to
Monte Carlo and check up, insisting to Rebekah Harkness that
he stage Sylvia Pas De Deux, and that I do it, which I
did with Helgi Tomasson.
Sal was
more modern-based than I was, and so for us to stay together
we had to find a company that would work for us both. That’s
what governed my career from then on. We auditioned for ABT—I
really wanted to be in ABT—and I was taken but Sal wasn’t. We
went to Béjart and although he took us, I didn’t re ally want
to be a Béjart dancer, though Sal was thrilled. So I gave up
ABT, he gave up Béjart, and we thought, “OK, now what?” We
came back to New York and attempted to make amends—my father
really tried hard. He asked Sal to work with him and his
company, which Sal did, though it ended in a huge explosion.
While we
were taking class at ABT, we discovered that there was a man
named Arnold Spohr from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet looking for
dancers. It was like Harkness: It had an incredible rep, very
good dancers, and did a lot of touring. That’s what we loved.
We danced for him and then marched off to Winnipeg, where I
got to work with John Neumeier. My father said, “You will
never be great, because you will never work with a great
choreographer.” In his mind there was only one, Mr.
Balanchine. But I thought John was great. And the working
experience was so fulfilling it really didn’t matter. We went
to Hamburg to join Neumeier’s company, but it turned out Sal
and I weren’t very happy there and so we returned to Winnipeg.
That’s where I ended my career, really.
What
happened when you stopped performing?
Sal took
over North Carolina Dance Theatre, which was then affiliated
with North Carolina School of the Arts. As soon as we got
there, Robert Lindgren, head of the school, said to me, “Teach
here. You can leave to audition anytime.” I was there for nine
years.
Robert
believed in me and loved me, and that fortifies who I am now.
Ultimately, I wasn’t enjoying just teaching, so I opened a
pastry shop and catered parties
 for the large donors. It was a
good time. I’d get in at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning to bake,
then run over to the school to teach, walking around with
globs of dough on my shoes. But when my marriage broke up, I decided to go to Wyoming and enroll in the university in a
premed program—I had been interested in medicine from the age
of 13. I did that for a year, until my mother called and said,
“You have to come back to New York and help me teach because I
need help.” That was it. The decree.
I moved
back to New York,
and she told me I was out of my mind trying to do medicine.
And I kept buying into it, so I snuck away again. I enrolled
in a school of alternative medicine in
New Mexico.
That was amazing. They did Rosen Method Bodywork, and from the
very first time I put my hand on a person, I suddenly felt
myself to be who I was when I was a dancer. I came back to
life. I discovered that bodywork depends on the same
introspection I’d learned to do in order to perform difficult
roles like Le Corsaire pas de deux. When you touch a
person in bodywork, you go inside and come together in the
interior of the other person. That person’s story comes out
and you journey together in that story.
Today,
Marina Eglevsky teaches ballet, coaches dancers, and practices
Rosen Method Bodywork in the
San
Francisco
Bay Area. She is authorized to restage seven Balanchine
ballets.
Photo captions (from top to
bottom):
This
studio shot of Marina Eglevsky was taken in Winnipeg, Canada,
circa 1972. She ended her performing career as a principal
dancer at Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
Photo
courtesy Marina Eglevsky
A young
Marina poses with her father, André Eglevsky, and principal
dancer Maria Tallchief while on tour in Europe with New York
City Ballet. Photo by Studio Lipnitzki
Seven-year-old
Marina
looks ready to join her dad, onstage at
New York’s
City Center during a New York City Ballet rehearsal. Photo
courtesy Marina Eglevsky
Eglevsky and her husband, Salvatore Aiello, circa 1974.
Photo
courtesy Marina Eglevsky
Eglevsky traveled to Russia to stage Sylvia Pas de Deux, which
she had danced with Helgi Tomasson at Harkness Ballet, for the
Bolshoi Ballet.
Photo
courtesy Marina Eglevsky
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