Dancing in Saratoga Springs can be challenging. The SPAC stage is as hard as a rock and it has an extra panel of depth which throws off our normal spacing. The front wings are more recessed than the back ones which makes exiting and entering downstage labored (case in point: the downstage left grand jeté exit of my Raymonda solo was a real push). The backstage crossover is pure cement and very long so sometimes we get late when we have quick runarounds. The weather is often terrible too: sometimes it is so cold that we shiver and steam rises off our bodies visibly from the audience; sometimes it is so hot and humid that we can’t breathe and we slip all over the stage on our own sweat. The lights go out on occasion. Stray bats fly around above us. There is also no way to exit the amphitheater without climbing an incredibly steep hill—so after shows and in between rehearsals when our legs ache we are faced with yet another quad workout if we want to leave the compound.
Worst of all, bugs are everywhere (like a moth to a spotlight?). Once during a Concerto Barocco performance a huge beetle landed on Albert Evans’s head at the very beginning of the adagio. It crawled around on his face throughout his pas de deux while we corps women snickered behind him. Panicked, he asked me to flick it off him when we got to the large winding circle midway through the piece. But we had formed a giant chain, and he and the girl behind me had my hands. I could be of no help, for there was no way to do it without resorting to a head butt! Eventually the beetle fell
Worst of all, bugs are everywhere (like a moth to a spotlight?). Once during a Concerto Barocco performance a huge beetle landed on Albert Evans’s head at the very beginning of the adagio. It crawled around on his face throughout his pas de deux while we corps women snickered behind him. Panicked, he asked me to flick it off him when we got to the large winding circle midway through the piece. But we had formed a giant chain, and he and the girl behind me had my hands. I could be of no help, for there was no way to do it without resorting to a head butt! Eventually the beetle fell
onto Glenn Keenan’s skirt where it stayed until the curtain came down. She was very brave and didn’t mind too much, but poor Albert was traumatized. We were all shocked that he didn’t drop his partner.
Despite all of these issues, I love going to Saratoga and I am so happy that we are returning to a two-week allotment next summer. (We used to do three weeks; it has dwindled over the years.) The Saratoga season is a formative part of life at City Ballet—we rent big houses together and throw crazy parties. Touring always elicits company pride, and likewise the Saratoga season evokes a fierce solidarity. However, living with colleagues can also be oddly revealing: like when my close friend Jared Angle—the most chivalrous and reliable of onstage partners—ran away shrieking and left me to be attacked by a rogue chicken on our farm this year! (I was okay, I grabbed a stick.)
Cheesy as it sounds, returning to Saratoga every summer feels like going home in a way. This summer Wendy Whelan calculated that after 28 Saratoga seasons she has spent well over a year of her life in the town! There are also certain ballets that seem perfectly suited to Saratoga. Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet is bliss to dance outside in the woods (and it is all the better if it thunders and pours), as is Le Baiser de la Fée and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Midsummer I find it so moving to look from the children portraying fireflies around me on the stage out onto the lawn and the twinkling of the real fireflies beneath the trees. It can be a surreal, 3-D experience.
Despite all of these issues, I love going to Saratoga and I am so happy that we are returning to a two-week allotment next summer. (We used to do three weeks; it has dwindled over the years.) The Saratoga season is a formative part of life at City Ballet—we rent big houses together and throw crazy parties. Touring always elicits company pride, and likewise the Saratoga season evokes a fierce solidarity. However, living with colleagues can also be oddly revealing: like when my close friend Jared Angle—the most chivalrous and reliable of onstage partners—ran away shrieking and left me to be attacked by a rogue chicken on our farm this year! (I was okay, I grabbed a stick.)
Cheesy as it sounds, returning to Saratoga every summer feels like going home in a way. This summer Wendy Whelan calculated that after 28 Saratoga seasons she has spent well over a year of her life in the town! There are also certain ballets that seem perfectly suited to Saratoga. Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet is bliss to dance outside in the woods (and it is all the better if it thunders and pours), as is Le Baiser de la Fée and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In Midsummer I find it so moving to look from the children portraying fireflies around me on the stage out onto the lawn and the twinkling of the real fireflies beneath the trees. It can be a surreal, 3-D experience.
Lyrical Ballad Bookstore The town of Saratoga is lovely too. It has many great little shops that I look forward to visiting every year. The Saratoga Dance, Etc. ballet shop, Mrs. London’s bakery, and the Country Corner Café are among them, but my favorite is the Lyrical Ballad bookstore. Its meandering rooms in a former bank vault are stacked high with books of every kind; and the dance book section always has some rarities. I confess that I have lost myself there for hours at a time combing through the labyrinthine aisles. And I’ve spent more of my per diem there than I care to admit. My latest find was a beautiful gravure-filled French tome called L’Art du Ballet: Des Origines á nos Jours that was a steal.
Saratoga is a real arts community. With the theater that brings in world class ballet, opera, and symphonies, the vibrant Skidmore College campus, the National Dance Museum, and the Yaddo Artists’ Retreat all in close proximity to rolling farmland, the historical race track, and the serene lake, it seems like a truly inspiring place in which to live. The secret seems to be out unfortunately, and I’ve noticed lots of land development in the past few years. More parking garages and chain stores seem to spring up each year. I so hope Saratoga will retain its charming quirkiness amidst the population boom, for a lot of funky little spots seem to have disappeared (R.I.P. Last Vestige). The good news is that the wonderful volunteers of For Art’s Sake are proof that Saratoga’s core community truly values culture over consumerism and they are willing to fight for it. Next year marks NYCB’s 50th anniversary in Saratoga Springs; I hope that it remains a solid home for the company for decades to come.
Saratoga is a real arts community. With the theater that brings in world class ballet, opera, and symphonies, the vibrant Skidmore College campus, the National Dance Museum, and the Yaddo Artists’ Retreat all in close proximity to rolling farmland, the historical race track, and the serene lake, it seems like a truly inspiring place in which to live. The secret seems to be out unfortunately, and I’ve noticed lots of land development in the past few years. More parking garages and chain stores seem to spring up each year. I so hope Saratoga will retain its charming quirkiness amidst the population boom, for a lot of funky little spots seem to have disappeared (R.I.P. Last Vestige). The good news is that the wonderful volunteers of For Art’s Sake are proof that Saratoga’s core community truly values culture over consumerism and they are willing to fight for it. Next year marks NYCB’s 50th anniversary in Saratoga Springs; I hope that it remains a solid home for the company for decades to come.
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