Departures Leave the Joffrey With Some Big Shoes to Fill

As the Joffrey Ballet rehearses at Cal State L.A. for its 1989-’90 national tour, six dancers are no longer on the roster--including several of the company’s best-known artists. Making career moves are Leslie Carothers, Ashley Wheater, Glenn Edgerton, Victoria Pasquale, Jerel Hilding and Patrick Corbin.

The departures come 1 1/2 years after Robert Joffrey’s death and the appointment of Gerald Arpino as artistic director.

The six former Joffrey Ballet dancers cite reasons for leaving the 40-member company almost as diverse as the new companies they have joined. While some were affected by the change in artistic directors and budget cuts, physical wear and tear and lack of principal and purely classical roles were also given as reasons to move on.

Arpino (one of Joffrey’s original six dancers) says that he understands when dancers leave the company. “I am a dancer. I understand their goals, aims, what they’re searching for. I, personally, have to be a part of that. It’s important for me to see my dancers grow, develop and achieve.”

When the dancers leave, “I miss them terribly, it’s very hard on me . . . They’re very special . . . They’re like family, all of them,” Arpino says. “Glenn left in tears, Leslie with tears, Victoria in tears.”

Carothers, 28, says she “felt bad that we all left at the same time.” A member of the company since 1980, Carothers says: “I didn’t want it to seem like a mass exodus. We were not fleeing Jerry Arpino by any means. Each one of us had particular, private reasons for making that move and it just happened at the same time.

“I had an extremely well-rounded career with Joffrey . . . from the very classical (Frederick) Ashton ballets to Mark Morris and Billy Forsythe on the other extreme. I think that the only thing that I missed personally in my career was the classics. The full-length ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Giselle,’ (for example). And I really shouldn’t miss those. It was as if a little piece of the puzzle was missing in my career.”

Carothers has not announced which company she will be joining. In the interim she’ll be “guesting.” She says she has a choice classical role lined up for herself: Myrta in the Connecticut Ballet “Giselle,” with Cynthia Gregory and Fernando Bujones. “There’s always the ‘Nutcracker’ season,” she adds, “there are lots of places I can do that.”

Edgerton, 29, who joined Jiri Kylian’s Nederlands Dans Theater, says: “I’ve been around for a while now. (He joined the Joffrey II in 1978 and the parent company two years later.) That’s 11 years in one place. A dance career is very short.” He said that if he didn’t move “soon, I wouldn’t make the change. There’s no hiring after 30.”

Edgerton’s first principal role at the Joffrey was in Kylian’s “Return to the Strange Land,” and he describes Nederlands Dans Theater as “contemporary/modern.”

Edgerton said he has “all the faith in the world in Mr. Arpino. . . . I just needed to experience and see other things. Joffrey is my home and I need to break away from home for a while. Who knows, I may be back.”

Wheater, 30, who joined San Francisco Ballet, wanted “more out of my career, more responsibility,” he says. “When he (Joffrey) was alive there was more in the rep so there were more challenges and more opportunities for doing principal roles. I think inside the company they (Arpino and ballet master Scott Barnard) liked me . . . but I never felt they were pushing for my career.”

Wheater says he was partial to Joffrey’s sense of programming, the way he put together a season to include a diversity of ballets. But “the repertory is heavily Arpino now,” he says, citing budget cuts for the limitations on the repertory. “Financially, the company needs more time to get back on its feet. It doesn’t have the money to bring back Joffrey’s full-length ‘Remembrances,’ ” for example.

“If I had stayed with the Joffrey, I would have done everything first-class because suddenly it would have been my shot (since Edgerton left). We were both good, both different. But Glenn did everything. It would have been better to have shared (the roles) more evenly. You can’t rely on one cast.”

Pasquale, 21, had been with with the Joffrey four years when she decided to return to American Ballet Theatre (where she’d danced from 1984 to 1985). “I have to get those tutu ballets out of my system, pointe shoes and a couple of tiaras,” she says, referring to her love of classical ballets. “Joffrey’s rep is eclectic and in the last three years the major classical roles went out of the rep.”

“I’m old enough to retire,” says the 39-year-old Hilding. Besides the “physical wear and tear,” Hilding (who joined the Joffrey in 1975) said he was tired of the long periods of travel, which took him away from his family.

He has a good feeling about leaving since he danced the title role in “Billy the Kid” during his last year with the company. “The fact that I was given such a plum role in the last year (made me feel as if I) went out on a high note.”

Corbin, who moved to the Paul Taylor Dance Company, could not be reached for comment.

“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Joffrey’s death had something to do with the dancers leaving the company,” said Donald A. Moore, executive director of Dance/USA, a national service organization.

“If a dancer is any good, there’s always the sense that there’s a more challenging role, higher pay or an artistic director with whom you’d rather work. A dancer cares a great deal. Performing is a craft both technically and artistically. If you feel you’re receiving that from your current artistic director or ballet master . . if those challenges are satisfying, then you stay.”