Broadway, Balanchine and Beyond: A Memoir, by Bettijane Sills with Elizabeth McPherson

It wasn't long before all the teachers came to recognize my ability, musicality and talent.
--Bettijane Sills; Broadway, Balanchine and Beyond (University Press of Florida, 2019)

I never saw Sills dance; she started at New York City Ballet in 1961 and retired as soloist in 1972, just before I discovered the company.  But the book contains many photos of her in ballet performances as well as excerpts from seemingly every time she was mentioned in a review.  Sills had a musician (double bass) for a father and an aggressive stage mother who helped her find employment on the stage when she was eight and took her to an audition at the School of the American Ballet when she was in high school.

I read whatever is published about Balanchine, but Sills book is like many others in its failure to get much beneath the surface complexity and beauty of Balanchine's ballets (some of us continue to wonder if Arlene Croce's long-promised book about Balanchine will ever appear).  Sills says "When I think of dancing some Balanchine ballets,  I find myself describing almost a religious experience-- a marriage of exquisite music, visualized by exquisite choreography to produce an incredible, transcendent, physical satisfaction."  That the dancers on stage seemingly were having more fun than the audience watching them led me to my own ballet studies, which I not only enjoyed physically and mentally but which also enhanced my enjoyment and appreciation of Balanchine's choreography.

Sills thinks her struggles with her weight made Balanchine lose interest in casting her in his ballets.  She also married, something of which Balanchine supposedly disapproved.  Sills does appreciate that Balanchine chose many dancers who did not look like the "pinheads" who were considered typical of the NYC Ballet dancer but whom Balanchine "thought were interesting" (my own favorites included Patricia McBride and Karin von Aroldingen).

Sills is now a repiteur of Balanchine's work for her students at Purchase and elsewhere.  "I love being able to share what I remember from rehearsals with Mr. B -- what he told us and how he wanted us to dance... The dancers improve when they dance his work."