An Inspiration to Balanchine, Suzanne Farrell Now Shows Dancers the Way

Her approach is not one size fits all. “Like a writer tries to find the best word for what they want to say, I try to give the dancers, my students, this philosophy: To give them a physical thesaurus of how to dance,” Farrell said. “When you’re young, you sort of masquerade behind the easy things, the legs, and the things that a young person would find impressive. But there’s so much more than just that.”

During her week at City Ballet, dancers, if they were free, parked themselves in the studio under a barre to watch Farrell work. Along with “Chaconne,” she coached “Errante,” “Apollo” and “Vienna Waltzes.” She also taught company class, “which is important because it prepares you for Mr. B’s ballets,” she said. “You can’t do his ballets if you don’t train his way.”

Walker, who watched all of Farrell’s rehearsals, said that in class she spoke about dancing with the entire body. “You can’t just leave a part behind,” he said. “It’s all coordinated and it’s all engaged.”

One thing Farrell insists on, Walker added, is subtlety. That fits with what he hears about “extreme misinterpretations” of the Balanchine technique, “how things have become so extreme.” But the reality, he said, is that “it’s not so exaggerated.”

That finely drawn approach was more than evident in the performance of “Apollo” that opened the company’s spring season, with Chan as the god, and Nadon, Miriam Miller and Emily Kikta as the three muses. A lingering, however fleeting, in the choreography’s photogenic moments has become ingrained over time. But Farrell emphasized the fluidity of dancing. The music steered the dancers through steps, seemingly reborn, that crystallized two fragile ingredients: simplicity and elegance. Farrell restored the ballet, the oldest in City Ballet’s repertory, making it young again.

Chan, who also worked with Farrell on “Errante,” said: “If we go with the music, the step is just going to be right, and it feels right. But if we don’t listen, if you’re trying to learn the step without the music, it’s totally a different dynamic.”