Balletmaster - a Dancer's View of George Balanchine (Moira Shearer) and of ballet critics…

I was quite sceptical as I have started reading this book.

I did not really know what to expect: first of all, I was curious about the way Miss Shearer used her pen, second I was quite aware that she had only worked once with Mr B. and third (after I had read the prologue) I could not have disagreed more with her when she wrote that she thought she was "a Balanchine Dancer".

Now please do not misunderstand me. I respect and admire Miss Shearer's work so much, even to think that she was the best English Ballerina of her times. A much better, more precise and expressive Dancer than her contemporary Margot Fonteyn but also in the 40s and 50s a certain "Marketing power" (not called this way at those times) existed - and Fonteyn had the better connections… although this was NOTHING in comparison to Nureyev, who was a Marketing Machine himself!

Reading the book I started understanding her and her points of view: she writes incredibly well, she did not describe much of her direct work with Balanchine but wrote a very well researched biography and, about being "A Balanchine Dancer", I came to understand this statement more from the philosophical "state of mind". It is meant more intellectually than technically, physically.

And, for two different reasons, I have to use again a phrase that I have been repeating for quite a while, "It's more important to be interested than interesting":

Yes, this great Artist from the stage (who also worked as an actress, for example as Titania in Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night Dream" with Robert Helpman) and film, daring to learn (much from her husband) how to write a book, adventuring into a new métier and in the second, among many extremely interesting stories and descriptions, a certain day in which she accidentally met Clive Barnes - yes, the famous ballet critic - and another English Dance critic, John Percival at the barre in "neat little tights and ballet shoes"! She added (about this delightful and comfortably large man); "The point is that they tried. I like that and it must surely ha increases their understanding - if only of the physical difficulties".

Bravo, Miss Shearer, for this would be a secret wish of mine: to have more people around who truly understand what dance is all about before writing inaccurate critiques or (even worse) just copying what is written either on the programme or some press release - a fact that I have been observing silently for quite a while.

You may be asking what I aim for with my above statement... surely, to honour the writing skills of the author Moira Shearer but on second thoughts also to have ballet and dance treated with the respect they deserve and this includes having critiques written by critics who have profound knowledge and experience on what they are trying to write about. Just a thought, a wish...