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\u201cHe took the candle and ran on the diagonal,\u201d she said. \u201cIn those days, they had footlights. He stepped over the footlight and stopped. I thought, Oh, my God, he\u2019s going to die\u201d \u2014 plunging off the stage. \u201cBut he didn\u2019t die. He stepped back and gave the candle to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was showing her, in essence, how the Sleepwalker possesses a layer of extras<\/em><\/strong>ensory perception; that what can\u2019t be seen can be felt, and that even in a sudden stop \u2014 as he did himself on that stage \u2014 there should be no physical reverberation.<\/p>\n\u201cBalanchine loved danger,\u201d Kent said. \u201cIn the step in \u2018The Unanswered Question\u2019 when she slowly goes back\u201d \u2014 the ballerina, again in white and held aloft, falls into the arms of four men obscured by darkness \u2014 \u201cthe audience is terrified for a moment. So this is the genius of Balanchine. Ah<\/em>! She\u2019s going to run off the stage! She\u2019s going to fall over backward! Is anyone going to catch her?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The original Sleepwalker \u2014 and the one Kent first saw all those many years ago \u2014 was the great ballerina Alexandra Danilova. Kent herself was briefly coached by Danilova not in the studio, but in a chance meeting, waiting for the 104 bus on Broadway. \u201cShe stood up and started demonstrating at the bus stop,\u201d Kent said. \u201cGosh, what a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rehearsing at City Ballet\u2019s studios with Unity Phelan and Taylor Stanley, who will perform the Sleepwalker and the Poet in one cast, Kent was intensely ethereal, acutely focused, with fingers full of life. She said, \u201cYou\u2019re getting messages from the air, the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Kent turned to the mirror to study their reflection as if it were a painting. With her elbows raised, her fingertips curving toward her chest, she worked on details \u2014 as many as she could. She was trying, it seemed, to penetrate below the surface of the skin, to draw raw emotion into the movement. Details are important to Kent, as they were to Balanchine. He would come backstage and say, \u201c\u2018Oh, your crown is half an inch too far back,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201c\u2018Bring it forward.\u2019 I mean, it\u2019s not even the hair, it\u2019s just the crown. Details<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nKent stood in front of Phelan, who held the candle with a curved arm as the other extended to the side. Kent rested her elegant fingers on Phelan\u2019s shoulders \u2014 just a whisper of pressure \u2014 and stared at their reflection in the mirror. \u201cDon\u2019t look up,\u201d she said, releasing her hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are sleepwalking, but you\u2019re aware,\u201d Kent said. \u201cYou\u2019re in another realm but there\u2019s something going on within you. A great tragedy that is not explained.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Phelan, who danced the Sleepwalker in a previous season, is approaching the role differently now. Her Sleepwalker moved too forward from the chest, but with Kent\u2019s help, she is working on relaxing, softening. \u201cYou can still be active, but if it gets all tense then it looks like you\u2019re putting on a show instead of it coming from a genuine place,\u201d Phelan said later. \u201cIf I\u2019m just being myself and actively doing something, I\u2019m not sensing everything in my body. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to bring it back to.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she first danced the Sleepwalker, Phelan wanted to prove that she could be ghostly, waiflike, light. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve discovered from Allegra is that I may have been going too far with that,\u201d she said. \u201cYou let yourself be involved emotionally. I think I was trying to stay so disassociated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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When the Sleepwalker comes onstage, she\u2019s not just taking brisk walks on pointe. She\u2019s searching. \u201cWe don\u2019t know what it is \u2014 if it\u2019s a child, if it\u2019s a love,\u201d Kent said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a huge thing missing. It\u2019s a huge urgency. But beyond that, there\u2019s so much mystery. There is a huge lack in her life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stanley, rehearsing the moment when the Poet waves his hand in front of the Sleepwalker\u2019s face to see if she is awake, was too dynamic. Kent stepped in to demonstrate. \u201cJust the tiny back and forth over my eyes,\u201d Phelan said, \u201cwith her hand being that close to my face, I saw all the energy. She wasn\u2019t shaking. Nothing was happening. But everything was alive in her hand. I was like, that\u2019s<\/em> what she means.\u201d<\/p>\nThere\u2019s nothing casual about \u201cLa Sonnambula,\u201d which Kent says is like no other Balanchine ballet. \u201cI used to do this night after night in my living room just to get that despair and the subtleties,\u201d Kent said. \u201cThat search. This is a \u2018Sleeping Beauty\u2019 in the Balanchine style. The kiss does not wake her up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n