Senora C Follows in Mr. B’s Footsteps

The show at Mexico’s historic 2,000-seat Palacio de Bellas Artes was sold out. To accommodate 1,500 spectators--mainly students unable to purchase tickets--a giant screen was placed outside the palace. What was the draw? Not a rock concert or even a political rally--it was ballet.

In her 29 years as founder and choreographer of the Taller Coreografico de la UNAM, Gloria Contreras has accomplished something nearly miraculous in the ballet world. Her company’s performances are making the art form--traditionally patronized by older, wealthier audiences--hip. As the sold-out 1998 Bellas Artes performance demonstrated, Contreras’ ballets--in Mexico at least--are making dance lovers of a whole new generation.

Taller Coreografico, which means “dance workshop,” is based at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), and at least part of Contreras’ appeal comes from the way she combines classical ballet tradition with Mexico’s indigenous and mestizo heritage. “Her finely wrought ballets,” wrote one reviewer, “remind U.S. audiences that you can have Mexican dancing without sombreros. . . .”

“Mexico has such a rich musical and cultural heritage,” says Contreras, who studied under George Balanchine in New York in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. “I wanted to dedicate myself to creating dance that represents that.”

Contreras brings her work, and her 28-member dance troupe, to the Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday. This is the second visit by the Taller to the United States, and Contreras hopes to make the tour a tradition. The performances will include a tribute to Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas and Contreras’ “Romeo and Juliet,” set to the music of Tchaikovsky.

“I choreographed my first dances with American dancers,” she said. “In many ways, I am indebted to the United States and to Americans.”

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Contreras knew at an early age that dancing was her calling.

As a little girl in her native Mexico City, she remembers dancing alone in her room. Her parents, peeking through the keyhole to watch their 6-year-old perform, decided to enroll her in dance classes, where, at the tender age of 7, Contreras showed an interest in artistic direction: gathering the maids at her ballet instructor’s home and lining them up for a dance class.

But it was not until she saw Mexican ballerina Lupe Serrano--who would later become a lead dancer for the American Ballet Theatre--perform to Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” that Contreras committed herself to a life in dance. She was 10.

“I had never seen anything so beautiful in all my life,” Contreras said. “I knew right then that was what I wanted to do.”

She decided to get serious about her craft by enrolling with one of Mexico’s few professional ballet teachers, Madame Nelsy Dambre, a tough, uncompromising former ballerina with the Paris Opera Ballet. Contreras didn’t even know how to tie pointe shoes when she first arrived in Dambre’s studio, but after more than a decade of study, she became one of Dambre’s leading ballerinas touring Mexico.

Still, in a country without a legacy of ballet, her ability to grow as a dancer was limited. Contreras decided she needed to leave. She took off for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Canada. But Winnipeg proved to be too small for Contreras as well. In 1956, she took a bus to New York.

Though she lived in near poverty in Spanish Harlem and had to struggle to study and dance there, Contreras said that New York tapped into all her fantasies.

“I took dance classes, I went to the opera, I went to museums. New York, for me, was a marvelous discovery.”

Contreras’ seminal discovery, however, was the legendary Balanchine. Although she was an unknown 21-year-old dancer and would-be choreographer, Contreras did not lack chutzpah. Through her doctor, who also happened to be Balanchine’s wife’s physician, Contreras made an appointment to see the great man.

“I was such a country girl. I didn’t realize that Balanchine was like Beethoven,” she said, laughing at the memory.

Perhaps amused by her courage, perhaps recognizing her talent, or a combination of both, Balanchine took Contreras under his wing and coached her in choreography at the New York City Ballet-affiliated School of American Ballet. She performed her early works “Huapango” and “El Mercado” for him. He, in turn, performed his favorite pieces--”The Four Temperaments,” “Serenade” and “Apollo”--for her.

“When he finished his ballet I started weeping. I thought, ‘My God. What grace and elegance! This is ballet!’ ” she said. “But then I said to him, ‘How could I ever come close to creating something like that?’ And he said to me, ‘Oh no, don’t cry. I am the choreographer of my generation. You will be the choreographer of your generation.’ ”

Balanchine, she says, taught her to see each sequence of a ballet as a perfect picture--if the dancers stop moving, it should create a sculpture. In order to understand the molding of bodies and shaping of movement to the dancers’ personalities, Contreras studied sculpture and fine art.

Balanchine also instilled in her the importance of understanding music. Music, he told her, is not linear. Rather than simply hearing the melody, the choreographer needs to see the different layers of the composition, the harmony, the rhythm. The composer’s soul must be felt in the music, Balanchine said.

“There are so many details that give a richness to ballet,” she explains. “Whenever I choreograph to Beethoven, for example, I try to understand his ideas behind the music. He gives me his hand and shows the way for me to do it.”

But after 15 years in New York and the founding of a fledgling company under her name, Contreras returned to Mexico. It was time, she says, to begin planting her roots in her native country again. In 1970, she approached UNAM about creating a Mexican ballet company.

Though the university supported her endeavor, it was difficult at first to capture the students’ interest. Ballet was seen as a boring pastime for “old ladies drinking tea,” said Contreras. So, she mounted a PR campaign on campus to create an audience.

She and her dancers spoke to classes, gave away calendars and hardback programs with pictures and detailed explanations of the ballets, and held free performances every Friday and Sunday afternoon.

“We mounted a political campaign and slowly we began gaining converts,” she said.

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Now, 29 years since its founding, the Taller performances at UNAM are standing room only--squeezing 700 people into an auditorium fitting only 500 nearly every Friday.

Part of the appeal is Contreras’ devotion to her own culture. Her dancers may be able to pirouette perfectly, but they come in all the shapes and colors and sizes of a mestizo culture. Though many of her dances are purely abstract, when they aren’t, the costuming, gesture and stance usually reflect Latin American themes. Her “Rite of Spring,” for example, has a pre-Columbian setting. Additionally, she doesn’t limit herself to European composers but also includes a long roster of such Latin American musicians as Revueltas, Blas Galindo, Jose Pablo Moncayo, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Manuel Ponce.

“Her preparation is one of a classical ballerina, and that has served well as a base to include Mexican art into her work,” said Mexican painter and friend Luis Nishizawa. “Her ballet is very free but always based on the rules of classical ballet.”

Although the Taller has clearly gained popularity among the young, Contreras still lacks solid patronage from Mexico’s rich. She is basically a one-person operation, without an executive director or a board to oversee the daily details of running the ballet company. She has even had to raise funds specifically to pay for part of the Taller’s trip to the United States.

“I know we need a director with a general’s temperament,” she said. “Despite our success, there are still a lot of obstacles--mainly financial ones, because art costs so much. Right now, Mexico is in a very sad economic state that is affecting the art world.”

Though she acknowledges that she needs to spend more time plugging her ballet company with the people who have the money to support the arts, she says she cannot tear herself away from the daily life of choreography. Still, she is mindful of the need to increase her visibility and to continue thinking about the future of her dance company.

“Every time we have a successful function, we immediately start thinking about the next one,” she said. “In the art world, one can never be complacent.”

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TALLER COREOGRAFICO DE LA UNAM, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive. Dates: Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Prices: $20-$40. Phone: (323) 343-6600.