San Diego City Ballet carries on Balanchine’s traditions

If experience is the root of success, then Steven and Elizabeth Wistrich of the San Diego City Ballet are towering oaks. Both had remarkable careers as dancers, working together at Boston Ballet with legendary director Virginia Williams and later, on his own, Steven worked with celebrated icon George Balanchine.

Often called the "Father of American Ballet," Balanchine merged his dance technique learned at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Ballet School with experience and knowledge gleaned from stints choreographing on Broadway and in Hollywood to create his distinctive "neo–classical" ballet style of choreography. A prolific choreographer, his ballets are admired for their unique brilliance and companies worldwide still perform his pieces. Balanchine not only founded the world-renowned School of American Ballet and built it into one of the most celebrated dance conservatories on the planet, but also created his signature company, the New York City Ballet. To have worked with or studied with Balanchine is considered a great privilege and the ultimate training in dance.

In 1993, Steven and Elizabeth tried their hand at co–directing their own company, San Diego City Ballet (www.cityballet.org). This month they are producing three Balanchine ballets: Rubies, The Four Temperaments and Walpurgis Nacht (music by Stravinsky, Hindemith and Strauss, respectively). Steven elaborated on the company’s accomplishments and goals.

Steven Wistrich: It was always part of our mission to present Balanchine’s ballets here. I coached with him in some of these ballets, so I have this long–standing connection with him and New York City Ballet. When we danced our first Balanchine ballet back in 1994, it was such a thrill… Now we’ve become the largest center of Balanchine’s work in San Diego, 18 of his ballets in our repertoire. There’s a particular joy a director has in knowing he’s putting the best of the ballet world out on the stage. To me, choreography doesn’t get better than Balanchine.

Erica Miner: What was your journey to bring these ballets to your company?

SW: The George Balanchine Trust, based in New York’s Lincoln Center, are the caretakers of Balanchine’s ballets. You have to go through them to receive permission to dance his works. We had to first send them videotapes of the company, since they’re very concerned that the work be danced at a high enough level. They knew I had worked with Balanchine, and liked what they saw. We staged Valse Fantaisie first, music by Glinka, which I had danced many times… Over time, various women from NYCB have come to work with the dancers and got to know the company and dancers really well. It’s been thrilling. So we try to present Balanchine’s work as often as possible. Last season we performed a wonderful all–Balanchine program. For the first time, somebody from the Trust in New York actually flew in to see the company in person. She was thrilled with what she saw, and so impressed that such a small company like this had an orchestra. Sandra Jennings, one of the repetiteurs from the Balanchine Trust, will be coming and staging two of the three Balanchine ballets here this month.

EM: Is any one of those more challenging for the dancers?

SW: They’re all incredibly challenging. Rubies is sensual, jazzy, energetic and athletic and requires a lot of technique. Walpurgis Nacht is much more romantic. The Four Temperaments is one of Balanchine’s most famous contemporary ballets, created back in the 1950s. Balanchine was such a pioneer. Nobody was doing ballets of that kind, very modern, startling. He created a whole new vocabulary that no one else was using. It looks as fresh and brilliant and effective now as it was back then. That’s the true test of a genius, over time. The work doesn’t fade.