Dancing with Maria Tallchief

This winter, New York City Ballet celebrates the centennial of one of the company’s most iconic, foundational artists: Maria Tallchief. Born Elizabeth “Betty” Marie Tall Chief on January 24, 1925, she was raised on the Osage Reservation in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and began ballet lessons at the age of three. When she was 10 years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she trained with Bronislava Nijinska; shortly thereafter, she became a member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and toured with that company until 1947, when she joined the newly-formed Ballet Society, the last of George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein’s companies prior to the establishment of New York City Ballet. Tallchief’s performances in NYCB’s early years, along with her incomparable style, mastery of technique, and undeniable stage presence lent the nascent company a recognizable, popular star, essential to its own establishment within the city and worldwide. To honor her immeasurable contribution to New York City Ballet’s artistic identity and repertory on the centenary of her birth, the Winter 2025 All Balanchine II program features three of her signature roles: Firebird, Scotch Symphony, and Sylvia: Pas de Deux. Though the first two of these ballets are frequently programmed, the third hasn’t been performed by the company in over three decades, and therefore represents an opportunity to explore a lesser-known exemplar of both Balanchine’s choreography and Tallchief’s artistry.

Premiering in 1950, Sylvia: Pas de Deux allowed Balanchine to work, on a limited scale, with music by one of his favorite composers: Léo Delibes, who is often considered the progenitor of ballet music as we know it today—particularly so by Balanchine, and by Tschaikovsky, who claimed that without Delibes, he’d never have composed such masterworks as Swan Lake. Written six years after the groundbreaking debut of his Coppélia, Delibes' Sylvia is a three-act narrative ballet, originally choreographed by Louis Mérante for the Paris Opera. In his Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, Balanchine describes the score for Sylvia as “extraordinary for its time, as it remains for ours.” His Sylvia: Pas de Deux is choreographed in the tradition of a grand pas de deux, with entrée, adagio, two solos, and a coda, and bravura footwork for the ballerina throughout its 12 minutes. The ballet highlighted Maria Tallchief’s virtuosity, as was remarked upon its debut; of the piece, Tallchief herself commented on “some very lovely ports de bras that were reminiscent of a French style…. It was charming, with different-looking steps that were still purely classical. It was a wonderful and very artistic showpiece.”

A success from its first performances, dance critic Walter Terry singled out Tallchief’s dancing in his contemporary review: “Tallchief responded to every item of choreographic demand in a performance which surely represented a supreme example of virtuosity and a superior manifestation of classic beauty. … So superb was she that technical definitions fled the mind and the beholder was simply content to describe her performance in one word, ‘Wow!’” Though her original partner in the ballet was Nicholas Magallanes, André Eglevsky would debut in the role in 1951, and Sylvia: Pas de Deux would become most associated with their partnership. As such, it was one of three works Balanchine willed to Eglevsky, and it’s now held by his daughter, Marina Eglevsky, who returned to the NYCB studios in January to rehearse with today’s dancers.

“When I was born, my father was in the company, and I was taken to the studios and performances all the time. So, I kind of grew up with the company,” shares Eglevsky. “When I was around six or seven years old, I started doing the Nutcracker, and each year moved up the ranks in the production. Then, I studied and trained at [the School of American Ballet]. When I was 14, Balanchine allowed me to come and take class, to get accustomed to it and observe what the dancers did. Then I left and joined a different company. And when I was in other companies, I also danced Balanchine's works.” Today, Eglevsky is a repetiteur for the George Balanchine Trust; though she stages many works within NYCB’s repertory with schools and companies around the world, there are three specific Balanchine ballets she holds the rights to: Sylvia: Pas de Deux, Minkus Pas de Trois, and Glinka Pas de Trois. Besides her intimacy and training with SAB and the company, and with her father’s own school and company, Eglevsky cites her presence among the dancers as an important influence on her relationship to these pieces.

“I remember Maria vividly,” she says. “I was always around the company and I would hang out with the dancers. Maria and Melissa Hayden were my big babysitters. And Maria, to me, was so elegant. She was just the epitome of perfection, glamour, and beauty. Of course, she was a very strong dancer and had incredible technique, but I always remember her smile. She dressed beautifully, and she was very gracious. That taught me a lot. She worked very closely with my father, and I loved to see their connection.”

That connection informs her approach to Sylvia: Pas de Deux in particular. “To me, the story of this ballet is the relationship between my father and Maria, who they were as people, and how they worked together. I always tell the dancers that I really want to capture their elegance and respect for each other,” she explains. “And other than that, it's just beautiful dance, beautiful movement. It’s exquisite.”

Though not included in the All Balanchine II program, another of the three ballets Eglevsky coaches will be featured in winter programming, as part of Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky’s world premiere work, Paquita: Balanchine’s Minkus Pas de Trois. As with Sylvia, the original Paquita, with a score by Ludwig Minkus and choreography by Joseph Maziliar for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1846, was a narrative ballet, later staged in Russia by Marius Petipa in 1847. Premiering in February 1951, just three months after Sylvia: Pas de Deux, the original cast for Balanchine’s Minkus Pas de Trois was comprised of Tallchief, Eglevsky, and Nora Kaye. “Not so exciting as Sylvia, it is nevertheless a spectacular tour de force which makes great demands on the dancers and gives the public its money’s worth,” wrote Terry. “Such a performance could make even the most jaded believe wholeheartedly in the genius of all concerned—Balanchine, the dancers, and even Minkus,” critic Anatole Chujoy concurred. The Pas de Trois was last performed by NYCB during the 1993 Balanchine Celebration, and was another focus of Eglevsky’s recent visit.

“I think the first time I danced Minkus was with my father, and I must have been 10 years old,” recalls Eglevsky. “I learned it quite young and danced it so much. It has a very strong upbeat to it, a happy, fun, upbeat. Mr. Balanchine wanted students to do the ballet, not exclusively principal dancers in the company. Wendy [Whelan] mentioned, and she was right on: ‘It molds a dancer. It can make a dancer.’ That’s really true.

“The variations were choreographed to show off each of the dancers, including Maria and my father,” she explains. “It’s just pure, pristine dancing. There’s difficult technique for the three performers, without it being overly difficult. You can really work the technique, which gives a dancer a lot that they can apply to other ballets. And it’s just a beautiful, fun piece.”

As Ratmansky has described, though Petipa and classical choreography are essentially in NYCB dancers’ DNA through their training in the Balanchine technique, learning these “older” works presents unique challenges for the company members—and opportunities to both hone their footwork and bring multiple artistic generations and vocabularies into conversation. “The dancers were wonderful—they’re incredible,” shares Eglevsky. “Working with [Repertory Directors] Gonzalo Garcia and Christine Redpath was just a complete pleasure. The dancers were picking up the choreography very well, and quickly. And I felt that they were enjoying exploring and working on more classical choreography.”

For Eglevsky, the importance of maintaining an oral tradition and handing down these ballets in person is immeasurable. “There's nothing comparable to getting as close to the source as possible, hearing things that you would never hear by watching a tape,” she says. “There's a soul to a ballet, and the greatest way of passing that on is person to person. It's almost like magic.

“I see Maria’s mark, her personality, her spirit in the movement,” Eglevsky adds, describing Tallchief’s enduring presence within the works she now coaches on today's dancers. “I always learn so much each time I stage a Balanchine ballet because there's never an end to learning with genius and with his work. But I also think about how much more I can understand of what Maria put into the choreography, as well as my father; I always feel like I want to know more.”

_{Rehearsal photos © Erin Baiano}