It is wonderful to catch glimpses of Le Clercq on film, to see her performing the roles she made her own. Even among the greatest ballerinas who have ever lived, she stands out, an unearthly, yet wittily down-to-earth creature made of air, nerve, and muscle, transcending gravity on the tips of her toes. With a seemingly effortless grace that is mesmerizing, she goes beyond what we might expect a body to do, as if she is supported by music alone.
--Orel Protopopescu, Dancing Past the Light (University Press of Florida, 2021)
This is a marvelously detailed and footnoted biography of a great dancer, though there is not a great deal of footage of her dancing available, with the significant exception of the last movement of Western Symphony, with Jacques D'Amboise, and available on YouTube. Protopopescu talked to everyone and includes dozens of photos and copies of Le Clercq's correspondence with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Le Clercq's life was intertwined with those two choreographers who made wonderful ballets for her, from Balanchine's La Valse to Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun, though there is little that is new in this biography, which follows Le Clercq's life from her earliest ballet lessons at seven to her time at NYC Ballet, her dance-ending polio in 1956 and her marriage to Balanchine from 1952 to 1969, when Balanchine became besotted with Suzanne Farrell, and Le Clercq's later teaching at The Dance Theatre of Harlem, started by Arthur Mitchell, a former partner at NYC Ballet.
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