Within the March 1950 subject of Dance Journal, a profile of ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq opened the “Younger Dancer” part.
Although described by author Walter E. Owen as “one other of those dancers whose profession has no glamorous highlights, no thrilling episodes,” the then-20-year-old New York Metropolis Ballet dancer had already carried out main roles “in a lot of the firm’s ballets,” amongst them Balanchine works like Symphony in C, The 4 Temperaments, Ondine, and Bourrée Fantasque. Of her efficiency within the final, Owen wrote: “On this ballet for the primary time in her ballet profession, Tanny actually involves life and postures and grimaces with actual antic high quality, stunning her audiences muchly, most of them having at all times regarded her as a really severe younger girl well-known for by no means cracking a smile.”
Along with outlining Le Clercq’s coaching with Mikhail Mordkin and at Faculty of American Ballet, previous to her dancing with NYCB predecessor Ballet Society, Owen additionally described her enjoyment of studying—most not too long ago a e-book of essays on Chopin and a gothic horror by Henry James, The Flip of the Screw—and curiosity in pursuing conventional theater. He concluded, “She claims that she is lazy—however nobody ever danced like Tanaquil Le Clercq with out loads of good, onerous work.”
