I don’t remember with certainty but I think it wasn’t at ABT’s downtown studios but in the basement studios at the Met at night while a performance was going on upstairs.
When Giselle runs she’s level on the ground but simulating being in flight. The ballerina’s palpable physical being has to convince the public that she’s immaterial. It’s not a technical moment but even more difficult because of that, the expressive possibilities of the movement.
It was so quiet. There wasn’t a pianist. There was such an intimate, partly unspoken dialogue between Susan and Elena that I felt somewhat like an intruder. And it can be more intimidating to have to expose yourself in something that is apparently simple yet infinitely nuanced.
But Susan had the ability to tune out anything distracting and just work. Elena gave Susan idea after idea about how to fine tune the run, and you’d see something instantly reflected as Susan sailed from one side of the studio to the other.
After it was over it was like we ll three had shared some kind of experiental moment together.
It was such a distillation of the creative performing process, the search for perfection without which ballet becomes simply a compromise.