Dancing Past the Light: The Life of Tanaquil Le Clercq by Orel Protopopescu (University Press of Florida, 2021)

—Cathy Ritchie

For a goodly portion of my pre-adolescence, I was ballet-obsessed. While a dance class’s barre-and-tutu routine held no attraction, I instead read every available history of the art, paying special attention to its individual movers and shakers. I was periodically reminded of a dancer whose name I wasn’t likely to forget: Tanaquil Le Clercq, universally considered one of the greatest ballerinas of all time. Back then, I only knew that she became paralyzed from polio while at the peak of her career, but I filed her away for future reference.

Many decades later, I was delighted to cross paths with Dancing Past the Light. Thanks to Orel Protopopescu, I have finally learned much more about Le Clercq’s true greatness and her career’s sudden end. With this book, her legacy is now further secured.

Le Clercq---nicknamed “Tanny” her entire life----was born in 1929 of American parents in France who returned to the States when their daughter was three. Her dancing talent was evident early, and she won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet in 1941. Ballet quickly became her life’s sole focus.

By age 15, Le Clercq had caught the eye of the School’s genius choreographer and dance master George Balanchine. Therein began the relationship that would forever shape her, as Le Clercq became both the first ballerina Balanchine trained from an early age, and eventually his fourth and final wife.

Le Clercq broke the classical dancer mold: she was unusually tall with exceptionally long legs, was intensely musical, and set the standard for what would become the so-called “Balanchine ballerina.” She inspired some of his greatest works, pieces still considered her signatures: Four Temperaments, Serenade, and Symphony in C. Arguably, her finest performances with Balanchine’s New York City Ballet (NYCB) were in La Valse, The Cage, Western Symphony and particularly in Afternoon of a Faun, a duet with Jacques D’Amboise.

The latter work was choreographed by the bisexual Jerome Robbins, Le Clercq’s lifelong creative friend and could-have-been romantic partner. Their bond would always be intense-verging-on-intimate though most doubt they ever consummated their relationship: “Mr. B” was always the primary object of her devotion. Balanchine’s attraction to her led to both great dance-making and his fourth marriage. The ceremony took place on New Year’s Eve, 1952: Le Clercq was 23 and her husband 48.

As a team, there appeared to be no limits to their artistic greatness, and Le Clercq continued to labor mightily for Balanchine the demanding taskmaster.  In 1956, NYCB planned a strenuous European tour. By that time, polio had become a frightening worldwide reality, and though most of her colleagues received the Salk vaccine before traveling, Le Clercq balked, promising to obtain the shot when she returned. But she fell ill in Copenhagen and received the dreaded diagnosis. After a stint in an iron lung, Le Clercq would survive, but at age 27, she could no longer move her legs.

The dire news was felt throughout NYCB and within the Le Clercq/Balanchine marriage.  To his credit, and to the surprise of many, Balanchine devoted himself to his wife’s physical recovery and overall welfare for over a year as Le Clercq’s wheelchair became a permanent part of their landscape.

A large portion of Protopopescu’s narrative describes Le Clercq’s post-diagnosis existence from the late 1950s into the 1960s. Her relationship with Balanchine frayed painfully once he became publicly enamored with the young ballerina Suzanne Farrell. Though he remained wed to Le Clercq for over 16 years, his longest marriage ever, they would divorce in 1969. They remained friends until his death in 1983, and Balanchine bequeathed to his ex-wife the American rights to nearly all his ballets, thus demonstrating his respect for their years together while securing her financial future.

Adjusting to a life without Balanchine, Le Clercq tapped into the determined personality she was known for, and returned to teaching in the 1970s. From her wheelchair, she conveyed the movements she sought from students via her hands, arms, and words, while relying on her still-strong musicality. She worked extensively with Arthur Mitchell’s Dance Theater of Harlem; and though Black classical dancers still were a rare sight in those times, Le Clercq never failed to align herself with artists of color. As the author comments: “By teaching in Harlem, Le Clercq had joined a growing Black Arts movement that fused the arts with social activism. By teaching from a wheelchair, she had become a pioneer of disability rights, too….”

Le Clercq forged a life of friends and projects until her death from pneumonia in 2000 at age 71. Fortunately, her legacy lives on via this book, YouTube footage from her greatest ballerina days, and especially the 2013 PBS “American Masters” feature documentary Afternoon of a Faun, directed by Nancy Buirski. The film depicts Le Clercq’s pre- and post-polio life, including enlightening reminiscences by her Faun partner D’Amboise and many others. For anyone seeking fuller understanding of what made “Tanny” so artistically revered and personally beloved, this film, coupled with Protopopescu’s text, is required viewing.

I’m glad I remembered her name.