\n<\/p>\n
She asked for some pli\u00e9s. \u201cI did two pli\u00e9s, and she said, \u2018Forget it,\u2019\u201d Walczak said. \u201c\u2018She will never dance. She has no talent.\u2019 And I was destroyed. For two days, I cried. My parents didn\u2019t know what to do with me. And then I said, No. I\u2019m going to dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
At around 14, she auditioned for the School of American Ballet and got in, later performing with Ballet Society, a subscription-based company formed in 1946, in Balanchine\u2019s \u201cThe Spellbound Child.\u201d She was insistent on another point, too: \u201cI just really was not his cup of tea.\u201d<\/p>\n
She referred to herself as \u201cone of the numbers.\u201d She never auditioned. \u201cHe knew that I was a very fast learner,\u201d she said. \u201cHe knew he could always count on me. That no matter what happened, I would learn it. I\u2019d get through it. And I think that was the main thing he respected about me. And I think he saw that I loved to dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walczak was also a sharp observer. (With the dancer Una Kai, she wrote \u201cBalanchine the Teacher,\u201d a jewel of a book examining the fundamentals that shaped the company\u2019s first generation.) \u201cWhat made him zero in on a dancer was not only the physical, the technical, the height, the look, whatever \u2014 and Suzanne Farrell\u2019s the perfect example of it,\u201d she said, referring to Balanchine\u2019s muse of the 1960s and \u201970s. \u201cIt\u2019s the intangible, uncontrollable timing of her body.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walczak, who works with dancers and also designs veils and headpieces for brides, left the company in 1960, realizing that she wasn\u2019t going to go any further. Coming offstage in \u201cScotch Symphony,\u201d she met Balanchine in the wings. \u201cHe said, \u2018You know, dear, you are very good dancer, but the ones that are coming are going to be better,\u2019\u201d Walczak said. \u201cSo he told me, you know, Hey, this is it. Time to go.\u201d She knew he was right, but it was hard. \u201cMy doctor said I had what is called a walking nervous breakdown,\u201d she said. \u201cI cried all the time for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t want to teach. She didn\u2019t want to have anything to do with ballet. But then she changed her mind. With ballet and with Balanchine, she gained more than she lost. \u201cI guess because I was always in love with dance,\u201d she said, \u201cafter I got over the hurt, the fact that I experienced in my body \u2014 that movement, that timing. That\u2019s a treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n