A DEMIGOD’S UNWAVERING AESTHETICS

The blue-green eyes penetrate dead-target across the table. They are pools of avid innocence. They do not necessarily look for a response. They only bid contact, a most certain contact.

Antony Tudor surveys the large, pink-hued room of an ocean-front restaurant in Laguna Beach. His manner, hardly self-important, hardly that of the demigod he represents to dancers of American Ballet Theatre, seems less severe than reputation ever allowed. But he sits ramrod erect--a lean, linear figure Giacometti might have sculpted; an ascetic in neat, nondescript garb.

At 77, the originator of the so-called modern psychological ballet is still a refreshing exemplar of crypticspeak. In a conversation that explores his own aesthetic and the general state of dance, a guileless Tudor utters spontaneous, though hardly expansive opinions.

His presence is monklike: He is hairless and bone-thin. His eyes blaze with intensity--a benign intensity--and his comments burn with searing candor.

“I’m basically solitary, not crazy about people,” says the dance maker who plotted the intricacies of contemporary human yearning in his landmark ballets. “There’s no mystery about why many backed away from me: I was icy and distant.

“If they found me fearsome and aloof, it’s because they made too many assumptions and I ended up answering their questions with questions.”

Whatever Tudor’s iconoclasm, he occupies an exalted place in the dance world. Since the ‘30s and ‘40s when he created such works as “Pillar of Fire,” “Dark Elegies,” “Jardin aux Lilas” and “Dim Lustre”--the last of which Ballet Theatre dances Tuesday at Shrine Auditorium--he has stood among the late George Balanchine and Sir Frederick Ashton for his seminal contributions to 20th-Century ballet. Unlike the oeuvres of those prolific giants, however, his output remains painfully limited.

“I only made a ballet when I wanted to,” he says, allowing that “now my body doesn’t move well enough to do choreography. For George (Balanchine), it was a matter of course to enter the studio and put his step-step-steps together.

“I have no thoughts about where I fit into dance history. All I ever wanted to do (in the beginning) was make a ballet good enough to be asked to do another. I carried on what Fokine, in ‘Les Sylphides’ did before me--the idea that all dance comes from the torso. He freed the body (for self-expression) and I just continued.”

Yet, there is some irony in the fact that Tudor chooses to be laconic about the very ballets that speak so eloquently. While the language he cast them in--a sort of social Expressionism overlaid with lyric angst --lends itself to discussion, he offers little, saying he’s satisfied to have others explain the significance of his work.

“But I have a question,” he announces with typically Tudorian ingenuousness. “Why do you suppose all but two of my ballets (“Offenbach in the Underworld” and “Dim Lustre”) take place in the open air? I never figured it out.”

Dancers have always regarded Tudor with equal parts of awe and terror.

Nora Kaye, who created roles in many of his most famous works, recalls the “horrible times when he was mean, even sadistic. That was how he worked. But the results were so wonderful--he is truly a genius--that we just accepted the method. He spoiled me for any other choreographer.”

Muriel Bentley says that “to be in a Tudor ballet was more than an honor, it was the dream of most dancers in the company. Yes, I remember leaving rehearsals sometimes in tears (of frustration). He had an uncanny way of knowing the truth and expecting others to have his kind of honesty.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov, artistic director of Ballet Theatre, comments (in a prepared statement): “This is really Tudor’s company. I give him carte blanche . We’re ready to do any and all of his ballets, with his casts, on his instruction. During our next New York (spring) season, we will honor him with a gala evening--staging four of his works.”

Clearly, Tudor takes a certain pleasure in these tributes and condemnations. A beatific smile lights his face as he mentions that Sallie Wilson, the ubiquitous heroine of his works throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, “has her moments of total detestation of me--because I frustrate her. Yet, she stages my ballets for other companies, and I have her respect.”

A waiter delivers menus and the choreographer, who looks like he subsists on air, confesses to anticipating this reprieve from the strict macrobiotic diet (grains and vegetables) that he and his longtime companion, former dancer Hugh Laing, subscribe to. He orders coffee ( verboten ), and then decides on an omelet with scallops.

“I’d be happy to live on bread and water, though,” says the British-born son of a butcher, who goes on to describe his vivid memories of “fresh, fragrant prosciutto” and other delectable meats.

The current revival of “Dim Lustre” (1943), a fragile backward glimpse at lovers waltzing in an Edwardian ballroom, received mixed reviews last June when it was first performed in New York.

“One critic praised it too highly,” says the sanguine Tudor, “and another said it was absolutely out of date. But I don’t agree with that either. The designs were done from old photographs of the original (by a collaborative unit called Motley). There were problems, though. The whole thing was overlit. It should fade out at the wings and upstage, instead there are abrupt blackouts.

“I wrote a long letter months ago to the lighting man about this and never had a reply. It’s one of the irritating things about Ballet Theatre. Sometimes I wonder if they don’t just schedule my work because (the late) Lucia Chase (the company’s previous artistic director) put such a clause in the contract when Misha (Baryshnikov) took over.”

Tudor, who has been with Ballet Theatre since its first season (1940) and is identified with the company more than any other choreographer, feels that Baryshnikov is supportive of him.

“He says he loves my ballets,” the grand old man of Ballet Theatre states blandly, “and maybe it’s true. I certainly trust him as much as any director. Although he’s the boss, there are many others advising him and I’m not sure there is such a thing as artistic direction by committee. The company still defers to me, but I don’t push it. Being civilized is more important. I’m sort of on management’s side, so I’m not inclined to ask for longer rehearsals (than standard).”

But there are those who believe that Tudor’s very special and perishable ballets are not getting the level of attention they need, that the dancers presently available to him are faceless--as opposed to the Nora Kayes and Hugh Laings and Muriel Bentleys, who originated such roles in “Dim Lustre” as the Lady With Him, the Gentleman With Her and A Reflection.

He agrees. But he says that current conditions do not allow for anything else.

“The emphasis for today’s dancers is on youth,” he explains. “And no one is very developed. They spend all their time in class or union meetings. I don’t even talk to them. One of the differences between the old and new Ballet Theatre is that we used to be a family. We worked together constantly, understood together. The same cast would create and dance roles, learning them from inside out. Now you see four or five rotating casts for ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ It’s all different.”

The talk turns to the company’s local run. As usual, Tudor has no plan to attend any of the performances, not even those of “Dim Lustre.” That the Shrine Auditorium season coincides with his annual winter stay in this Southland resort and is the distance of one freeway hour away he explains as happenstance.

“I loathe the Shrine,” he says with what, for him, resembles fervor. “It’s bad enough getting to the theater (the Metropolitan Opera House) in New York. I limit myself to watching class and matinees. I go early to bed, which makes a man stupid,” he chuckles.

“But we’ve done all the rehearsing we could. I considered the cast I chose (Susan Jaffe and Kevin McKenzie) to be the best pair. She’s musical, asks questions and listens. The others pretend to know but are wrong. She and Kevin will no doubt argue over what I gave them, but neither will be right. Yes, it frustrates me, but even if I showed them the physical corrections it wouldn’t matter because the expression must grow out of the movement, and that requires deeper understanding.”

Tudor also has reservations about the present decor, which he finds “a little gaudy perhaps because it’s too new.” But at least it gets his nod, which is more than he could allow the production at the New York City Ballet in 1964. There, he found Beni Montressor’s designs “atrocious, all wrong, loathsome.”

His disapproval was made known to Balanchine, who commented: “I liked the ballet. But Tudor wanted it to be danced in simple dresses, middle-class English style. Here we wear beautiful, elegant gowns and tiaras like kings and queens. So it’s no use for us to dance it.”

In the last three decades, Tudor has choreographed precious little. Significantly, it was Gelsey Kirkland who most recently captured his fancy. She created roles in “The Leaves Are Fading” (1975) and “Tiller in the Fields” (1978).

Tudor pulls out all superlatives for her. “She is superb,” he says. “A dancer who has intuition. But I wouldn’t do ballets on most other stars because they turn everything into ham acting. Once, the company didn’t consult me and cast one of these dancers in ‘Pillar.’ (He refuses to name names.) I saw her performance and was horrified. They took her right out.”

Fed perhaps by his longstanding practice of Zen Buddhism, Tudor seems remarkably free of ego concerns and he shrugs off a reference to himself as the pillar of modern ballet.

“Modern ballet is old-fashioned today,” he says. “If you want to know what’s new under the sun, it’s Pina Bausch. I was bowled over by her. She’s positively astonishing. Even when I taught her at Juilliard she was exceptional.”

The reluctant pillar goes on to talk enthusiastically about a movie he’s just seen, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a TV film of “King Lear” with Laurence Olivier and “Ran,” Kurosawa’s recent movie inspired by the same source. He smiles serenely with this change of topic--as if to underscore his Zen point of reference.

“But in the end,” he says in the best haiku style, “I get the impression that life is just chopping vegetables.”