Who Was Maria Tallchief Read online

  When Maria was twelve—and the dreaded buckskin costume no longer fit—she met a woman who changed her life forever. The woman’s name was Madame Nijinska, and she became Maria’s new ballet instructor.

  Madame was short and round. Her large green eyes were hawk-like. She missed nothing. And she was demanding. Her pupils took their place at a long rail called the “barre” to begin their exercises. Madame’s hard fingers rapped Maria’s shoulder. Hold your elbow this way, she instructed. Use your back muscles. Over and over again she corrected Maria’s movements.

  Madame herself danced for them, showing them the proper way to move their feet. Mrs. Sabin had never danced. Mr. Belcher had never danced. As she watched Madame Nijinska, Maria suddenly knew what she wanted. Maria had perfect pitch in playing the piano. Now she wanted to be perfect on the dance floor, too. Practice was no longer just an hour or two a day. Maria began to live and breathe ballet, because that was how Madame said it must be.

  “When you sleep, sleep like ballerina,” Madame told Maria in her Russian accent. “Even on street waiting for bus, stand like ballerina.”

  When Maria was fifteen, Madame Nijinska announced that she would stage three ballets.

  One of the ballets was Chopin Concerto. It was a classical piece that Maria had learned to play on the piano. Maria knew the music in her soul. She was certain that she was Madame’s favorite pupil. That was why she was so crushed when she did not get the lead role. Madame cast her as one of the “corps.” The corps is a group of dancers who move together on stage. No one dances alone. No one rises en pointe or leaps unless all the others do. Everyone does the same thing at the same time.

  Ruth saw the hurt in her daughter’s eyes. She saw, too, that Maria would never become a concert pianist. Dancing had become Maria’s dream. Ruth comforted her daughter. “You have to show that you want to dance with all your heart, even in the corps. You shouldn’t just expect a role to be handed to you.”

  It was an important lesson for Maria. “The next day,” she said, “I put everything into rehearsing. I went over the steps day and night.”

  Madame noticed Maria’s dedication, and she smiled. Her favorite pupil was indeed learning. One day, she might even become a star.

  Chapter 6

  On the Road

  When Maria graduated from high school in 1942, her father told her it was time that she began earning a living. Maria’s first paid job was dancing in a movie. It was a musical called Presenting Lily Mars. The star of the movie was a young actress named Judy Garland. While Maria was intrigued by the movie star, the dancing job was not very challenging. Maria’s heart simply wasn’t in Hollywood. She wanted to become a ballerina.

  Earlier in the year, Maria had seen the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo perform. This was a dance company that traveled across the country. Some of the lead dancers had even joined one of Madame’s classes to work with her best pupils. Maria was among them.

  Once again, Maria’s mother came up with a plan. She arranged for Maria to travel with a friend to New York City. Once there, Maria could audition for the Ballet Russe.

  Maria was seventeen years old that summer of 1942. America was at war with Japan and Germany. The train terminal was crowded with soldiers hugging their wives and kissing their children goodbye. Maria had never traveled alone anywhere. She could not remember a time when Marjorie was not at her side. But her sister was still in high school and had to stay behind.

  “All aboard!” the train conductor called. Maria hugged her family, then she stepped onto the train.

  Once she arrived in New York City a few days later, Maria faced a great disappointment. The secretary of the Ballet Russe turned her away. “We don’t need any more dancers,” the woman said coldly.

  The words tore at Maria’s heart. She had traveled all the way across the country with the hope of joining the Ballet Russe. She swallowed back her tears long enough to write her name and the address of her hotel in New York City. She gave it to the secretary. Once outside, Maria began to cry. She was alone and lonely in the city, and she didn’t have a job.

  Three days later, something wonderful happened. Mr. Denham, who was the head of the Ballet Russe, remembered Maria. He had seen her dance when the Ballet Russe had visited Madame Nijinska’s studio a year earlier. Now the company was about to go on tour. At the last minute, one of his dancers had decided to leave the company. Mr. Denham hired Maria.

  A few days later, Maria once again arrived at the train station dragging her heavy suitcase behind her. A crowd of dancers and musicians was already on the platform. Maria knew no one. She took a seat in the train car. All night, she sat upright in the darkened car, because she didn’t know—as the other more-experienced travelers did—how to make her seat recline. And she was too timid to ask for help. In the morning, her back and legs were stiff. What did it matter? She was going to dance with the Ballet Russe!

  In each city, the troupe unloaded its costumes and musical instruments. The dancers went first to the theater where they would perform that evening. Because of the long hours cramped on a train or sometimes a bus, they carefully stretched their legs and arms and back. After warming up, they took a class. Then they went to their hotel rooms. Often, the rooms were shabby, small, and dark. The girls paid for their rooms out of their weekly earnings. To save money, three girls shared a room. Sometimes, Maria slept on a mattress. Other nights, she slept on the floor. The dancers took turns washing their hair in the bathroom sink down the hall. Refreshed, they returned to the theater to rehearse again before the evening’s performance.

  A choreographer plans the dance steps in a ballet. Often, the choreographer instructed the dancers to learn new roles during the day for a performance that night. Learning new roles exhausted Maria. She lost weight. And always, her hands and feet were like ice.

  “Maria, you must eat,” Mr. Denham scolded her. “A dancer must keep her strength.”

  Maria promised to eat more. She didn’t tell him, however, that she could barely afford a plate of spaghetti for twenty-five cents. Sometimes, as a special treat, Maria bought Fig Newton cookies. Most weeks, her mother sent her a five-dollar bill. Maria refused to spend that money on food. It was her savings! She locked it safely away in her suitcase.

  When she was rehearsing, food and money were the last things on Maria’s mind. Her willingness to learn caught the eye of the choreographer. Soon, he cast her as an understudy for one of the ballerinas. If the ballerina could not perform, then Maria would take her place on stage.

  The ballerina was shocked. “Maria? She is too young. She is not ready. It is a mistake.”

  Maria feared the ballerina was right. Some nights, Maria worried so much that she could not sleep. What if she had to dance the ballerina’s role and she failed? She would embarrass the entire dance company. Yet whatever her fears, she resolved to go on stage and show what she could do.

  Many of the dancers in the Ballet Russe were Russian. For them, ballet was a Russian art. The Americans were merely imitators. That seventeen-year-old Maria had come so far so quickly made some of the Russians jealous. During a rehearsal, Maria’s Russian partner let go of her hand at the wrong moment, and she fell. She could have been seriously injured. Had he done it on purpose? She had no way of knowing.

  “You should change your name to Tallchieva,” Mr. Denham told her one day. He felt Tallchieva sounded Russian. People admired Russian dancers much more than American dancers. Look at all the famous Russian prima ballerinas, he said. America had no prima ballerinas.

  Maria remembered the schoolchildren whose war whoops had made her feel like an outcast. She was proud to be Osage. She was proud also to be an American. No, she decided, she would never change her name again just to fit in.

  During Maria’s first year with the Ballet Russe, she danced as one of the corps. Someday, she hoped to dance in a leading role. For now, she was happy just to be part of the company that included such
wonderful Russian ballerinas as Alexandra Danilova and Nathalie Krassovska.

  In May of 1943, Nathalie and Mr. Denham had an argument. Nathalie walked out of the theater and did not return. Maria never learned what the argument was about. All she knew was that she was to dance in Nathalie’s place. The time had come for Maria to step from the corps into the spotlight as a soloist. She was terrified.

  THE BALLET COMPANY

  Although dancers study ballet for many years before joing a company, they still have much to learn about dancing technique. As dancers learn and improve, they advance from the corps to soloist, from ballerina to prima ballerina.

  Corps de ballet

  Most dancers begin as members of the corps. They dance together as one group, everybody moving the same way at the same time. In a ballet like The Nutcracker, they are the guests who attend the holiday party. In Sleeping Beauty, they are the villagers.

  Coryphees

  This is a small group of dancers, quite often six. The choreographer plans their steps, and they perform together as semi-soloists.

  The Soloist

  As a dancer learns or improves upon technique, the choreographer may promote the dancer to the position of soloist. A soloist dances alone on stage. Some soloists become “principal” dancers with a company. That means they will dance in leading roles.

  The Ballerina

  After much hard work and many performances, a principal dancer may rise even higher to the position of ballerina. A ballerina is not only a very accomplished dancer but also one who dances with passion and artistic feeling.

  The Prima Ballerina

  Only a few ballerinas will become prima ballerinas. She is much more than just a star. Her performances are nearly perfect and bring fame not just to herself but to the entire ballet company.

  The ballet that Maria performed was the one that she knew and loved so much, Chopin Concerto. She had been practicing the dance steps ever since the choreographer had made her an understudy.

  “The moment of truth had arrived,” Maria would say later. She stepped on stage. Later that night, sitting in her dressing room with a bouquet of flowers, Maria could hardly remember the performance. It just seemed to “fly by,” she said.

  A few weeks later, Maria performed the same ballet in New York City. In the audience was John Martin, a dance critic for The New York Times. He later wrote this about Maria: Tallchief is the real discovery in the classic field . . . When she has grown up, so to speak, she can hardly escape being Somebody.

  Maria was grown up. She was eighteen years old. But in the dance world, she was a newcomer. She still had much to learn. She had no way of knowing that within a few months she would meet the person who would teach her everything she needed to know about ballet. His name was George Balanchine.

  Chapter 7

  Mr. Balanchine’s Muse

  George Balanchine was the new choreographer for the Ballet Russe. Every day, he watched Maria closely. One time she was doing exercises at the barre. Her right hand lightly held the rail as she slowly slid her left foot across the floor, pointing the toes. The exercise is called battement tendu. Finally, the new choreographer stepped forward. “If only you would learn to do battement tendu properly,” he said, “you wouldn’t have to learn anything else.”

  His words crushed her. She felt as if she were still a child who had to relearn once again the basics of ballet.

  In the ballet world, some people thought George Balanchine was a genius while others thought him cold and unemotional. Maria had seen him work with dancers. He created magic on the stage.

  Madame Nijinska had given Maria a passion for ballet. Mr. Balanchine, another Russian, could give her discipline. With his help, she began to retrain her legs to move more precisely.

  During the day, she took classes. In the evening, she danced. Months passed. The changes in her body surprised her. Her legs seemed longer. Her muscles had stretched. Even her neck seemed more gracefully long. As her dancing improved, her confidence in herself soared.

  Mr. Balanchine’s interest in Maria was more than just professional. He was falling in love with her. One night, he asked her to marry him. Maria was unable to speak. Mr. Balanchine was twenty years older than she! And he had been married and divorced, not once but twice! Her mother and father would never approve of such a marriage.

  The Russian was very handsome with his dark eyes. In the weeks that followed, Maria began to feel as if she were living in a ballet fairy tale. She was Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. Mr. Balanchine was her handsome “prince of dance.”

  They married in the summer of 1946 in New York City. The bride was twenty-one years old. Just as Maria had predicted, her mother and father did not come to the wedding. Nor was Marjorie there. Maria’s sister had graduated from high school and joined a different ballet company. She was performing and could not get away. Even though Maria missed her family, she felt real joy when George slipped the wedding ring onto her finger. She and George had each other, and that was all that truly mattered.

  “You are my muse, my inspiration,” George told his young wife. In Greek mythology, a muse is a goddess who sparks the imagination of an artist or a poet. George used music and dance to create great works of art. With Maria as his muse, he began choreographing new ballets just for her.

  He was patient but demanding. “Do it over again, this way,” he told Maria. He danced the steps himself so she could see exactly how he wished her to move. Maria had always been eager to please. If George believed she could make a grand jeté, or jump, then she would try with all her strength and concentration to do what he wished. When she succeeded, he simply smiled and said, “I knew all along you could do it.”

  In 1947, George accepted a temporary job as the choreographer for the Paris Opera Ballet. Maria traveled by ship to France to be with him. She would also dance with the ballet company under her husband’s direction.

  One of the ballets they rehearsed was Apollo. The subject of the ballet is the Greek god Apollo and the nine muses who inspire works of art. The ballerina Tamara Toumanova had the lead role of Terpsichore, the muse who inspired mortals in the art of dance. A few weeks before the opening night, Tamara became ill. George decided Maria would take Tamara’s place.

  At first, Maria questioned her husband’s decision. Tamara Toumanova was famous. In contrast, no one in Paris had ever heard of Maria Tallchief. In fact, no American ballerina had ever danced before at the Paris Opera House.

  George was determined. Maria was his muse, and she would dance as Terpsichore.

  On opening night, the King and Queen of Sweden were in the audience. As Maria waited nervously in the wings for the curtain to rise, she wondered if the audience would accept her, a shy girl from the Osage reservation in Oklahoma. She need not have worried.

  The next morning, Maria’s photograph appeared in the Paris newspapers. One headline read: Peau rouge danse à l’Opera pour le Roi de Suede! In English it meant, Red skin dances at the Opera House for the King of Sweden!

  Maria had never forgotten the war whoops of her classmates. But she was older now. She understood that the French had not meant to insult her by calling her a “red skin.” They were simply fascinated by her Native American heritage. Even George sometimes teased her. He called her his “Pocahontas,” after the Indian princess in American history who saved the life of a white man, John Smith.

  Maria understood the fascination, but she was also determined. If she were to become a prima ballerina, then it must be because of her dancing and not because of the color of her skin.

  The Balanchines returned to America in the fall of 1947. Six months in Paris had changed both Maria and George. Maria had new confidence in herself as a dancer. George had a new dream. He wanted to start a ballet company. Instead of spotlighting dancers from Europe, his company would train American dancers. One year later, the dream became real. The New York City Ballet gave its
first performance.

  GEORGE BALANCHINE

  George Balanchine was born in Russia in 1904. Like Maria, he began studying dance when he was still a child. Because the ballet school in St. Petersburg was far from George’s home, he lived at the school and not with his parents. As a young man, he joined the Soviet State Ballet, also known as the Kirov Ballet.

  Although George performed on stage, his real love was choreography. He had new ideas about how dancers should move on stage. Most ballets told stories, but George believed that the music of the ballet was more important than the story. So he created ballets where the dancers interpreted the music.

  The Russian ballet company for whom Balanchine worked did not like his ideas. They dismissed him.

  George left Russia. He traveled throughout Europe, dancing and choreographing. While looking for work in London, England, George met a wealthy American named Lincoln Kirstein. The two became friends and business partners. George traveled to America and, with Lincoln’s help, began to choreograph plays on Broadway in New York City and movie musicals in Hollywood.

  Like Maria, George’s true love was ballet. At the time he met Maria Tallchief, George Balanchine was already famous. Some people thought him a genius; others thought him as hard and demanding as an army general.

  George Balanchine once said that ballet is woman. In Maria Tallchief, he found not just a devoted wife but also a muse. She became his inspiration, and together they made ballet history.