Marina Eglevsky – A Legacy of Dance, Part 3

This month, we continue with Part 3 of my interview with Marina Eglevsky. We take up where we left off last month, with her move to the Bay Area.

Marina teaching at Shawl Anderson, Berkeley CA

Marina teaching at Shawl Anderson, Berkeley CA

Q:  How many years now have you been in the Bay Area?

A:  I came here in 1994.

Q:  I’m sure my readers at Adults in Ballet would like to know this – I know you’ve talked about this that you felt like your father Andre Eglevsky had really spearheaded the whole idea of lay people, of adults studying ballet – can you talk a little bit about that – he had his school attached to his ballet company, how did he come to invite people into his home to study ballet with him? I’m curious about how all of that happened?

A:  Well he didn’t invite anybody – he was so famous that people would come to him – and his school wasn’t that big, one tiny studio that my mother usually taught kids in, and one bigger studio but not very big and he taught his classes in there and there were so many people, it was so crowded – we had children in intermediate and advanced classes. And at the beginning, so many people would come into his advanced class and of any age and he allowed that, but at some point they decided to separate it, so they put the adults in their own class and kept the advanced for the advanced students.

Q:  So the adults that came into the advanced class before you separated them, did they have to have a certain amount of technique to get into that class?

A:  No, his premise was that – he welcomed most everybody and he felt that if you were a beginner, you stand in the back and you learn. And it’s the very best way to learn, is that you don’t stay in the front, you stay in the back and you watch and you pick up. He thought that was the best way of picking up – and I think they did that in Europe.  I’m not exactly sure that he was the very first one in history that had adult classes – maybe not in the U.S., but in Europe, because I know like (Olga) Preobrajenska and Cecchetti, I think they had classes with adults in them and he studied with those teachers. And that’s the way I am, I would see adults come in there that wouldn’t know anything. Especially the guys – not women – the guys – he’d see a guy in the street and say why don’t you come into ballet class?

Q:  Really…  just because of the way they looked or the way they moved?

A:  For instance, he invited a school teacher from down the street into class, and he really improved, he started performing – a lot of them would start performing, my father would have them in productions – we were doing productions all the time. I still feel that way – I teach at Shawl – I welcome adults. I have people at all levels and ages – I am just totally open to that, because of my father.

Q:  What I see as a potential problem with adult classes, is the lack of proper correction in class. That’s a big concern I have for ballet training – is having schools that have reputable training – that teachers will take time with each adult, for proper placement.

A:  Well in my father’s class you got corrected, he looked at you as learning how to dance and if you could fit in a production, he’d put you in a production. Like this man, who he brought in – he would play the father or the mother in productions – you’re in class your treated as if your wanting to be a dancer. And then he – there were so many adults, the classes were so big – he broke it up, so there were separate adult classes and then he broke those classes into beginning and intermediate dance, so there were 2 levels.

Q:  So, what keeps you going now? What keeps you teaching, what keeps you doing the bodywork – is it the natural passion you found as a child?

A:  The bodywork is more of a passion – of teaching too I think really a selfish thing – a passion to understand myself better. You know I have to in order to teach – I really have to understand myself and who I am and my – I rekindle my relationship  to the essence of – because I’m not a dancer anymore – to the essence of ballet and of movement what ballet is about, what makes something work in a person – and that fascinates me.

Q:  Interesting… so, a movement that might work for a particular person, particular technique, with a particular personality, might not work for another person?

A:  Well, it’s on many different levels – a level of what would work for this class today – what would make it worthwhile for this class in general – what would work for people in class. Then, there’s what would work for training pre-professionals. I like to gear my focus how to produce that individual so they would become professional material.

Q:  For your private ballet coaching and group classes – do you teach weekly?

A:  At Shawl Anderson in Berkeley, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach an intermediate/advanced adult class. And I also offer private ballet coaching for adults and pre-professionals by appointment.

Q:  The bodywork that you do – how would people find out about your bodywork and what are the different methods you use in your sessions with clients?

A:  It’s generally word of mouth from my clients – I haven’t sold myself that much.

I do medical massage – and that incorporates acupressure, deep tissue and energetic work, so I do a lot of energy work. And I do alignment work and I look at a person’s alignment and work them through processes and hands on work. I also do rosen method bodywork and also I’ve trained extensively on the gyrotonic machine and I work extensively on that for alignment, but I’m not certified on that. I have a machine in my office and I use some of the movements.

And this concludes my interview with Marina Eglevsky – truly a glimpse into a fascinating life and she carries on the legacy of dance instilled in her by some of greatest legends of the ballet world.

Marina Eglevsky – A Legacy of Dance, Part 2

Marina at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet
Photo courtesy of  Marina Eglevsky
Photo credit: Peter Garrick

This month, we continue with Part 2 of my interview with Marina Eglevsky. We take up the thread of this portion of the interview by continuing with her years at the Hamburg Ballet, after having left Harkness Ballet:

Q:  From leaving Harkness and joining Hamburg Ballet, how long did you stay there?

A:  We stayed there for a couple of years, but we didn’t like living in Germany too much, so we went back to Winnipeg (we had an open contract there — as we were only on a leave from the company). A lot of things happened there – I had a major accident, someone dropped me in a lift, and I didn’t think I could recover – political issues as well – I felt like I was an artist and was in a protective bubble against political issues and the company was disbanded and for the second time we were in a company that was disbanded — and when that bubble was burst and with my injury — I didn’t want to dance anymore. My husband wanted to direct and so he found a director position at North Carolina Dance Theatre, so I went with him and that’s where I started to teach, that’s when my teaching career started.

Q:  After you recovered from the injury – did you go back to dancing or guesting?

A:  I did, I was asked to join the National Ballet of Canada and also to ABT (American Ballet Theatre) or John Neumeier (Hamburg) and so I had a choice — to leave my husband, get in shape and go out to those companies and I just felt like — I just didn’t get it back, after what had happened at Winnipeg, so I went back to my husband in North Carolina. Then Agnes DeMille asked me to dance in Brigadoon on Broadway – I did that – but, my steam for being in a major company again just kind of ran out, so I went back to North Carolina and started teaching and started a bakery business and then I decided I wanted to go into medicine.

Q:  Was that the transition into bodywork? Is that how it all started?

A:  Yes.

Q:  So, was it at this point, that you intermittently guested with other ballet companies or were you pretty much teaching at that point?

Marina staging at the Bolshoi
Photo courtesy of Marina Eglevsky
Photo credit: Damir Yusupov

A:  I was teaching and staging — because my father had died in 1977, and before he died, he coached me in these Balanchine ballets to be able to stage them.  After he died in 1977, I staged them — these ballets that he had in the Eglevsky Ballet repertoire, that Balanchine had given him. I continued to do a lot of teaching and staging in North Carolina – continued with my bakery business for awhile, and when I decided to go into medicine, I decided to stop all ballet, but it never happened, I kept being asked to stage.

Q:  So when you had a desire to go into medicine, what form did that take in the beginning? Did you want to go to medical school and start there, or did you want to go into bodywork – how did that all start?

A:  I wanted to go to medical school and I wanted to be a doctor, I spent some time with friends in Wyoming to get away – I was staying there for the summer and I enrolled into school in Laramie at the University there – they were trying to get adults back into school, so it was so cheap and they had a fast track program. To be a doctor — like in 7 years — and you’re done. At the time, I thought it was ideal, and I tried it. I started it and got honorary grades, and then went to Miami City Ballet, to stage a couple of ballets, and got back for 2nd semester of med school and I was so behind, and I didn’t do so well. And, my grandmother got sick and my mother needed help with her school – so, I had to get back to New York, so that was the end of that. But, I didn’t want to stop so I consulted with a psychic who said:   “the best thing for you is alternative medicine, and there is a wonderful school in New Mexico”, so I ended up doing that and I fell in love with that, because it was more me.

Ever since I was little and I was dancing, I was basically studying alternative medicine to take care of myself — it was a fascination of mine — not really medicine per say, but the preventative approach.

Q:  How to help dancers recover and prevent injuries?

A:  Yes — which dancers need to know more about — you do everything you can do to get in a company with the body you have, you don’t want to lose that, and you’re always exhausted, so taking care of yourself doesn’t often enter a dancer’s mind.  {Interviewer:  I know for myself, everything goes out of my brain, strive to try my best in class and dance, without thinking of my body or injury.}

Q:  From the school in New Mexico, how did that transpire into bodywork, you’d said you’re also a massage therapist as well?

A:  My interest was more in medical massage, not just flat out massage, I had no interest in that, but to focus on specific problems, that was more like medical school, studying problems, that was my passion. In our first class, the very beginning of school, we had Rosen Method bodywork, I mean once I left a ballet company, I was lost – I didn’t find the same way of identifying myself in anything I did, I couldn’t find that and I really suffered from that.

I remember the first class, I’m sitting at the table with my hands on somebody, had no idea what it was — you just sit there next there next to a person, you put your hands on that person and they guide you thru a very intuitive process, watching yourself, watching this other person. The first day, I suddenly had this feeling that I’d found myself, that I’d found myself as a dancer – it was so amazing, I couldn’t believe it – it was like this self-centering which then goes out and meets another person. That’s what you do on stage, you’re so self-centered, then you’re meeting, going in, and it turns around and goes out and connects with the audience – and the audience, I never got confused whether there’s 100 or 1000 or 3,000 people – it always felt like one body, one person that I was speaking to – that’s what it felt like in this work – it was so profound for me, I never lost that, that wonder with that.

Q:  It sounds like a real passion of yours, a true passion of yours, I mean, hand in hand with dance?

A:  Yes, that’s the big thing now is to be in touch with one’s self and able to function in the outer world and at the same time – you’re in touch with both worlds at the same time.

Q:  So, you studied Rosen Method bodywork in New Mexico and I’m assuming there were more methods that you studied there?

A:  Yes, after New Mexico, I continued to study at the school that was formed to study Rosen, so I studied there and I actually wanted to train with Marian Rosen, who was in Berkeley. My whole upbringing had taught me to study with the greats – and the greats was with Marian, so I came to Berkeley in 1994 to study with her.

Q:  Is that what brought you to the San Francisco Bay Area?

A:  Partly, I did one more try at med school, and there was only one in New Mexico, Marian was here and so were other medical programs, so I looked into them – I was accepted into Cal, and I looked into a couple of other programs – but, I never got away from ballet, and Rosen Method, and preventative medicine – it just really hits me.

Q:  So, through out all this you were still being called to set Balanchine ballets on ballet companies?

A:  Yes.

Q:  And, also perhaps to do some guesting in ballets or at this point, were you no longer doing that?

A:  No, I stopped – I did my last performance in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I actually choreographed something on myself.

Q:  Was it with the Santa Fe Ballet?

A:  It was then — it was what is now the Aspen Ballet — the Aspen Ballet School took over the school in New Mexico where I was teaching when I was there.

End of Part 2 – stay tuned for next month’s 3rd and final installment.

Marina Eglevsky – A Legacy of Dance, Part 1

Marina Eglevsky on the cover of Dance Magazine, January 1969.

Marina Eglevsky, born into ballet royalty, started dancing very early – almost as soon as she could walk. Her parents, Andre Eglevsky, premier danseur with George Balanchine’s American Ballet (which later became the New York City Ballet) and her mother, Leda Anchutina, also a soloist with NYCB, brought to her a legacy of dance that is a fascinating account. I had the great pleasure of interviewing her about her life – from her growing up years, being taught by George Balanchine, and on to when she took the spotlight in her own right as a dancer, first with the New York City Ballet, then onto Harkness Ballet and the Hamburg Ballet with John Neumeier, among others. Her father Andre is also credited with – if not the first – then surely the first in this country, of inviting amateur adults into his ballet classes at The Eglevsky Ballet school. What follows is Part 1 of my interview with Marina.

Q:  Marina, you are the daughter of Andre Eglevsky, widely regarded as the greatest male classical dancer of his generation, and you began studying ballet with George Balanchine and now stage his ballets for other companies. When did you start dancing? Where did your passion for dance come from?:

A:  I just started dancing, my parents were not really involved in whether I did or didn’t – but, once I was in it, then they became involved in how I was working in ballet.

By the age of 2 or 3 I was sitting around in rehearsals backstage. At that point, my father went on a major tour in Europe, and when he was rehearsing or busy – I would disappear and start just dancing somewhere – my mother said she would lose me all the time and to find me, would look for the crowd of people because I would be in the middle of the crowd dancing – I drew the crowd with my dancing.

My father had a performance to do on major network and was running around the studio and somehow I got into a Howdy Doody set and they whisked me away and put me in someone’s office. I remember sitting in this office and there was a pair of pointe shoes, they were really little – I just kept looking at them, and then the lady in the office gave them to me and I put those on and took Balanchine’s class in those shoes until they disintegrated and shredded.

I was allowed to take Balanchine’s class at a really young age and take company class, even though I hung underneath the barre, he would correct me. I was able to reach the barre and so he would teach me turnout, etc.  Everyday I came in with my father, and I would be in company class. By 5 or 6 they started to put me in Nutcracker and then I was more or less taking regular classes at the school and being involved in performing Nutcracker.  After various roles, eventually I grew too big for the party scene and auditioned for Clara and really wanted it, but I was too small for the costumes. I performed in Pulcinella up until 12 or 13 and by then I was a teenager and really questioned whether I wanted to continue in dance since I’d already put in a lot of time and I wanted to get more involved with regular school.

At that time, my father started his own company and school, (while still dancing for NYCB) – The Eglevsky Ballet – and out of his school he would do his own guesting appearances. At one of those guest appearances he had two heart attacks and that was end of his career so when he recovered, he went more into his own school, and Mr. Balanchine said “Please, I will help you with your school and your company and please come and work with my school” (SAB, School of American Ballet). I was around 12 at the time – it was a big change. I thought maybe I should stay around and go to school and be a doctor. I asked my parents what they thought – they said:  we don’t care. So that made me angry and I thought I’d  show them – so I decided to continue dancing. I went over to American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and focused in on a teacher there.

Eventually, Mr. Balanchine did take me into NYCB at 14 – and it was like a 2ndhome there – it was just part of the course. Yet, I was afraid to be only one kind of dancer, a Balanchine dancer – and, I was also under the shadow of my father – part of me wanted to get away from that and be on my own. Rebekah Harkness of the Harkness Ballet – had the kind of choreography I felt an affinity for and it was the kind of repertory I wanted to do – so, one day I went up to the director and asked to be in Harkness – and they ended up saying yes.

Q:  What was your experience like with Harkness – how long did you stay?

Marina with The Harkness Ballet.
Courtesy of Marina Eglevsky.

One of the 1st choreographers in Harkness was John Neumeier, and he’d expressed a great interest in me. At that time I was 15 or 16, and I didn’t understand the implications of a choreographer liking me, otherwise if I’d understood I would’ve stayed with Balanchine. While I was at Harkness, I married a dancer there which my parents were also against – after Harkness folded in the 70’s, we worked a little bit with Eglevsky Ballet and tried to heal and mend things with my parents.

After that, we were taken into Maurice Bejart’s company – we stayed with them until contracts started, and while we were waiting for them to begin, it didn’t feel right to me, but my husband was thrilled. Once I was married, my husband and I had a goal to stay together – which made it difficult to get a job. We went to Stuttgart, got a yes, but it didn’t come through, so then we went to ABT, I got a yes but not my husband, so I didn’t go. One day I was hanging around in ABT in the studios, and a man from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was there, and asked if we wanted to be in the company, and they had this amazing repertory – like Harkness – so we said sure. So we went there – it was wonderful, one of the first choreographer’s that came to work with us was John Neumeier, and we worked with the Winnipeg company for awhile. John said he was starting a new company in Hamburg, Germany and “would you come to Hamburg?” We both said yes to joining Hamburg Ballet – John’s still there – (he was from Stuttgart, but branched off to the Hamburg Ballet.)

End of Part 1 – stay tuned for next month’s installment.