Stepping Out for Their Barre Exams

In the green room behind the Royce Hall stage at UCLA, lavishly made-up Auroras and Kitris circle a TV monitor, judging the performer on view. “Look at that,” mutters one of them. “She’s simplifying the steps. I didn’t pick the ‘Don Q.’ variation ‘cause I couldn’t do the turns--but she just leaves them out.” Another, just exiting from stage, lets out a groan. “Ooh, I forgot to smile.”

In the wings there are smothered cries. The glitter of tiaras and tutus does little to assuage defeat. One Odette takes her place and waits for the signal--gripping the curtain, taking deep breaths, deeply rotating her neck. She enters bravely, then goes into a backward run. A spill and a quick recovery. But horror fills her face after the exit. Deep heaving. Swallowed sobs.

This is the stuff of a ballet competition, specifically, the Marguerite Amilita Hoffman National Ballet Competition. It is Los Angeles’ first such competition, not a world-class contest such as those at Varna, Moscow or Jackson, Miss. But for the 13-to-19-year-olds competing for recognition among ballet company directors as well as for scholarships and cash prizes, this is real-world experience, jubilation--and self-discovery--following three days of technique classes observed by judges and a two-round competition.

The contest is the brainchild of local businessman Bud Corbin, who hopes it will immortalize his mother--a little-known performer and ballet mistress from Chicago, circa 1910. Besides showing his filial devotion, he also wanted to do a good deed; thus these sweepstakes, his attempt “to compensate American dancers whose government does not subsidize their training as the Europeans do.” At the urging of Orange County ballet teacher Jonette Rettig, he founded this competition bearing his mother’s name.

The cost, more than $140,000, “is enough to have ‘em lock me up,” says the backstage businessman. But it buys a lot: $31,000 in cash prizes and scholarships for the 93 teen-aged participants; transportation, lodging and an honorarium for the judges, rental of the UCLA facility.

Early in the week, the Dance Building at UCLA buzzes with ballet girls. Tall ones, short ones, some exhibiting the Balanchine ideal of apple-flesh skin tone and skyscraper legs, others of various shades and shapes. By the time they arrive at the huge rehearsal room in the bowels of Royce Hall all becomes quiet.

With identifying numbers pinned to their black leotards, 25 would-be ballerinas file along the barre . A teacher greets them. The pianist leafs through her music, preparing for the two-hour class. And six judges soberly scrutinize the dancers’ every move and aspect, sit at a long table, eyes ahead. The ritual repeats itself four times daily over three consecutive days.

“By the end of a two-hour class, we can see who does what,” says Ted Kivitt, an alternate judge and director of Milwaukee Ballet. The five other judges nod assent: artistic directors Mary Day (Washington Ballet) and Francia Russell (Pacific Northwest Ballet), school directors Nancy Schaffenburg-Cross (Dance Theatre of Harlem) and Marjorie Tallchief-Skibine (Chicago City Ballet) and teacher Jonathan Watts (San Francisco Ballet).

Nevertheless, “everything could reverse itself onstage,” says Russell. “Classroom citizens sometimes disappear in the moment of truth and unremarkable dancers come out blazing.”

Disappointingly for Corbin, only three men show up, against 90 women--half of them Californians. “Fathers will drive their daughters hundreds of miles to ballet lessons,” he bemoans, “but they won’t so much as open the door for their sons. Same old sissy stigma as ever.”

The competition’s key players reveal themselves little by little in classes for junior division (13-15) and senior division (16-19).

Wednesday : Everyone seems to feel strange. The judges with one another, the teachers--locals Stanley Holden and Margaret Graham Hills, Boston Ballet’s Bruce Wells--with their contender-students. Some in the junior class, besides looking like acolytes, actually seem pre-pubescent. One seems dangerously anorectic. Several might be older than 15. Competition executive director Rettig says birth certificate forgery is not unheard of.

The senior class has a markedly different look. Less hesitant, more self-absorbed, but with surprisingly little character. Facial expression is nil. The teachers merely mark and accent the combinations for the barre and center-floor work. Technique, at its different levels of accomplishment, parades impersonally.

Thursday : The atmosphere loosens considerably. The seniors’ morning class ends in exhilaration.

“We’re finally having fun,” says Boston’s Wells.

“I almost forgot I’m being judged,” says one previously reticent ingenue.

The judges are still busy assigning number grades (one through seven) for each category: facility, technique, musicality, performance quality, stage presence and professional potential (with the last three items awaiting judgment at the public events Saturday and Sunday).

Before the last class, dancers warm up in a hallway. One 18-year-old confides to another that she just came from the New York International Ballet Competition, “where I was so much out of my league that there was no growth, no self-discovery. The Europeans, great role models, were unbelievable, a whole different category than the Americans. They deserved to take all the medals. But at least here I have a chance.”

Friday : Several dancers at a time wend their way up to the Royce stage to rehearse their performance variations. Rettig and emcee William Como (editor of Dancemagazine) sit in the auditorium coordinating numbers with names, while Wells offers coaching tidbits and affectionate encouragement to each. In a sudden epiphany, Wells exclaims: “Here I am teaching baby ballerinas to be Sugarplums while some people in the world are starving!”

One dancer asks if she should give her “stage name” but is promptly reminded that she is not yet professional. Another goes through her solo with eyes cast down the whole time, every step telegraphing regret. Whatever belief she had prior to this moment is utterly gone now.

Finally, the process stops. But the 20 dancers who had collected in the wings randomly begin to drift back onstage--a melange of sundry costumes and silent choreographies. In the dim light, the scene looks like an outtake from a Fellini movie.

The teachers acknowledge that they share their students’ anxiety. Holden admits that even someone at his professional level becomes unnerved with judges looking on. Wells notes that several of the judges have even been his teachers, “so no matter that I’m a company director, I still feel little in relation to them.”

Saturday : The Fourth of July, the semi-finals. All 93 dancers each get their minute-and-a-half solo before a small audience of relatives and friends.

“Funny to get this far and know the whole thing can blow away in a minute,” says one flushed sylphide.

Occasionally there is a small burst of jubilation--with onlookers embracing their panting pal-rivals. During intermissions the green room empties and the judges file in, ready to tally the top five from each of four groups.

Sunday : Twenty nervous finalists face another agony. Not among them is the Chicagoan who danced an “Agon” variation with supreme finesse and sophisticated allure. A teacher says the girl had low points in class and seemed unresponsive. Looking pale and vulnerable in an empty dressing room, she admits to saving herself for performance--because of pending hip surgery, which she told no one about.

But the winners standing on stage glow with pride, blotted out the disappointments backstage.

The winners in Sunday’s final round of the Hoffman Competition, junior division, were: Kristin Douglas, first; Cassandra Seeger, second; Tamara Barden, third, and Josie Walsh, fourth. Senior division winners: Lisa Street, first; Anita Pacylowski, second, and Alexandra Kastrinos, third. All senior-division male entrants took prizes: Peter Morrison, first; Jason Zarookian, second, and David Cohen, third.

Top cash value of the prizes was $3,000 for juniors and $5,000 for seniors.