AN OVERLOOKED SURVIVOR

Some stars zoom into the cosmos, leaving shards of torn matter behind. Some others quietly shine and do not disturb the universe--they are survivors. Count Marianna Tcherkassky among them.

A peer of both Fernando Bujones and Gelsey Kirkland, who were her pre-professional classmates, she alone of them remains at American Ballet Theatre. It was there that the headline-making pair also made history, before the curtain as well as backstage.

But when the company returns to Southern California Tuesday for a season of “The Nutcracker” (first at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, then at Shrine Auditorium) it will be Tcherkassky who dances five performances.

Indeed, she originated the role--though most people associate the prepubescent heroine of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s staging with Kirkland, who is featured in the videotape production shown on TV every Christmas.

“The confusion is understandable,” says Tcherkassky, taking time out from rehearsals for a telephone interview from New York. “Although Gelsey was Misha’s (Baryshnikov’s) partner (10 years ago), she was not healthy during the ballet’s preparation period. So I inherited the role--one I cherish greatly--and danced the world premiere” in Washington at Kennedy Center.

Though Tcherkassky believes that current Ballet Theatre management bypasses her in favor of newcomers (“I feel a little overlooked. Where’s my respect?”), she exudes the same aura of harmony and gentleness that mark her dancing. No bitter edges protrude.

Instead, the 34-year-old ballerina (whose Japanese mother taught her to dance and whose Russian father was a singer) accentuates the positive.

“Just keeping fit is my focus,” she says softly. “If I didn’t stay on top of the technical demands, there would be no freedom to think about interpretation. Anguishing over the things you can’t change does no good. It’s better to concentrate on what you can control.

“Right now, for instance, I’m recovering from a sprained ankle and dancing only once a week causes extra anxiety. There’s always the threat that I won’t match in performance what I did in rehearsal.”

What worries her at the moment is the “Nutcracker” second act, where she must sit watching a 20-minute divertissement and then get up cold to dance “non-stop, trying to figure out where to breathe, where to relax, how to negotiate all those tricky lifts.”

But unlike Kirkland, who constantly refers in her recent book (“Dancing on My Grave”) to the partnering lapses of Baryshnikov, Tcherkassky cites him as “making me feel marvelously secure . . . in all the ballets we’ve danced together.” (Tcherkassky is scheduled to dance Clara opposite Johan Renvall in all the Southern California performances.)

Baryshnikov earns her praise for the production concept as well. She says that his contemporary point of view makes the character of Clara immensely appealing: “This is no longer a superficial, little-doll stereotype, but a vulnerable young girl caught in the throes of romantic longing.”

And it is as a Romantic that Tcherkassky sees her stage persona. Besides “The Nutcracker,” she has danced the ballerina roles in “La Bayadere,” “Cinderella,” “Giselle,” “Coppelia,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Les Sylphides” and “Don Quixote.”

“Misha didn’t think I could do Kitri” (in “Don Quixote”), she admits, acknowledging that he saw her less as the ideal spitfire and more as a demure, fey creature. “But doing it was a thrill. The challenge--dancing with attack instead of softness--helped me immensely. It actually gave my lyric roles greater substance by way of contrast.”

There was a time, however, when principal dancers did not rotate arbitrarily in ballet after ballet as they do now, she comments, complaining that the age of the dancing actor seems past. Harking back to 1970, her first season with Ballet Theatre, she says:

“I came in at the peak of the Lucia Chase reign. There were awesome dancers then, people like Erik Bruhn and Carla Fracci. My whole introduction, coming right out of high school to this illustrious company, was a staggering experience. It was hard to think about anything in life besides ballet. And I didn’t even try.

“But all that has changed, not just at Ballet Theatre but in our society. People don’t have regard for each other anymore. We used to hang back in the studio, out of deference to those great artists. Now there’s no such thing. I even see dancers pushing in front of Misha.”

While Tcherkassky admits that Chase could be dictatorial, she insists that the late director represented “a strong, tough-cookie morality based on her New England background.” The star system, she says, held out a sense of history and progression.

“We had models to look up to. Now everyone is on the same level. They’re all busy competing and indulging themselves. Meanwhile, economic survival is of paramount importance, the box office is everything. So choreographers are slighted in favor of the standard full-evening ballets. And that means fewer dancing opportunities for everyone.”

Nevertheless, Tcherkassky manages to co-exist peacefully with a situation she likens to “Catch-22.

“What one strives for must be the end in itself, not any reward it earns. That’s how I survived here--because sometimes I feel I’m giving my blood and not getting fed.”

Two of those who didn’t survive, Kirkland and Bujones, expected more, according to their peer. An “unhealthy rivalry” between Baryshnikov and Bujones finally erupted, she says, and Kirkland’s compulsive perfectionism--leading to an involvement with drugs--ended her Ballet Theatre association.

“But despite how well I knew every event in her life,” she continues, “I was not aware of Gelsey’s deep anguish. She raises some valid artistic points in the book. They need to be addressed.”

Meanwhile, Tcherkassky says she has reached a philosophic position on being overlooked in the company: “I never work competitively. I’m just not an aggressive type. People tell me I’m too nice. But yelling never helped Cynthia (Gregory) or Fernando. What’s important is to feel good about yourself. The more I see of the world the more convinced I am of my own morality.”