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A r*s :_______________NYC Ballet Stars TalkAbout Their New CompanyBY JUDITH STUARTPatricia McBride and JeanPierre Bonnefous, highly acclaimedprincipal dancers with the NewYork City Ballet, have, in the pasttwo to three years, been directing atouring company of their ownwhich will be part of the danceseason at Brooklyn College Centerfor the Arts, October 21 and 22.The company, not surprisingly, iscalled Patricia McBride and JeanPierre Bonnefous and Company,and while they firmly contend thatit is their own project, it is clearlyan outgrowth of Balanchine%u2019s NYCBallet.In mid-September, prior to theirdeparture on an American tour,McBride and Bonnefous graciouslyopened the airy Manhattan WestSide cooperative duplex apartmentto an interview, expressly to talkabout their company, its purposeand its growth.All dancers, and there are nownineteen, are borrowed from theNew York City Ballet and theSchool of American Ballet, bothdirected by George Balanchine.The principal dancers are membersof the company%u2019s corps while thetouring company has a corpscomprised of students from theschool, some of whom have alreadygraduated into Balanchine%u2019s corps.The costumes have been loaned tothe company by Balanchine and thewardrobe mistress, the stagemanager and some stage hands allcome to the McBride-Bonnefousventure through the courtesy of theNew York City Ballet. In fact,Balanchine himself serves asadvisor to this young touringgroup.The company was formed tospread Mr. Balanchine%u2019s workthroughout the country. AsMcBride explained: %u201cTo show Mr.B%u2019s w'ork outside New York City; toshow what good ballet is.%u201dThe repertory consists primarilyof the choreography of GeorgeBalanchine. There are a few newworks on the schedule, theseattributable to Jean-PierreBonefous, who received encouragement and support from Balanchinein his choreography. In fact,Balanchine suggested that hechoreograph in the first place.Sometime ago, Bonnefous was laidup with some torn ankle ligamentsand it took almost a year to healwell enough to return to his fullperforming schedule; during thattime, he found he had time to workat composing dances and teaching.His particular teaching interest ishis boys class, giving them specialencouragement and instructionappropriate for that group.McBride explained that JeanPierre was surprised when he cameto America. In France the boys andgirls had separate classes. Here, hefound, they were taught together.He felt that the boys neededseparate instruction with particularemphasis on their masculine rolesfrom a young age.COMMITTED TO BALANCHINEBoth dancers (married sinceSeptember, 1973), are fully committed to Balanchine and his work.McBride voiced similar regard forJerome Robbins as well. Both menhave been so much a part ofMcBride%u2019s life for so long that sheexpressed the feeling that, %u201cIcouldn't live without them in mylife.%u201d Bonnefous, who came to theNYC Ballet from an excitingEuropean career, including twoguest appearances in Russia withthe Kirov and Bolshoi Ballets, said:%u201cI think that my now I would havestopped dancing. But each day withthem (Balanchine and Robbins)there is amazement and excitement.%u201dNow Bonnefous is anxious tofulfill his dancing career until agedemands that he retire: %u2018%u2018Alldancers should be prepared to stopat age forty.%u201d To this he added thatof course there are variables, ansome performers are fortunateenough to keep going a few yearslonger. Thus, at age 35, Bonnefouslooks forward to developing thecompany and choreographing. Hewill pursue his love for teaching aswell. %u201cTeaching improves choreography.%u201d He clearly wants thestimulus that teaching provides; ashe said, more than once, for himchoreographing is very hard. Whenhe remarked that he had %u201clearnedthat it is impossible to be original%u201dhis wife lovingly tapped him on thehead as she walked by, stating thatthis is one area in which theydisagree. With obvious respect andaffection she paused to indicatethat she thought him highlyoriginal.She spoke of the works he hadcomposed: UNE NUIT A LISBONNE, music by Saint-Saens;QUADRILLE, music from DIEFLEDERMAUSby JohanneStrauss, a ballet for children; andfor TRICOLORE, the last additionto the three-part ENTENTECORDIAL, his %u201cPas Degas,%u201d thesecond section, which has beendescribed as a highly successfultheatrical event. All his work todate, as a matter of fact, has beenmet with critical acclaim. Like hisdancing, his choreography hasdepth and range. He has sincecomposed a short work to onemovement of a Haydn violinconcerto and this, his Saint-Saenswork, Balanchine%u2019s CONCERTBARROCCO and others will beperformed at Brooklyn College inOctober.On a more personal note, whenasked about the possibility ofchildren, McBride was quick toanswer that, although she anaJean-Pierre had thought about anddiscussed raising a family, the timewas not right at the present. Toomuch time away during this, theprime of her dance life, was themajor reason. She felt though, thatshe has a few years left, and thatshe might choose to do that a little later on. %u2018%u2018After all,%u201d she remarked, %u201c most dancers have their children la te .%u201d It is a professional necessity of sorts.Finally, when questioned about the addition of Baryshnikov to the New York City Ballet, both artists responded with deljght. McBride said that they were all surprised that Mr. B. accepted him because he had rejected so many other great artists who had come to him with their careers and stylesalready established. Nevertheless, McBride looked forward to working with him. Bonnefous was pleased and when questioned, explained why there is no threat to himself. %u201c No dancer can do all Balanchine%u2019s principal roles the best. Helgi (Tomasson) is superb in the roles he performs, Peter Schaufuss is the best in his roles, Eddie Villela had his and even I, in mine. Besides, the competition is good for me. It makes me work even harder to dance better. 1 welcome him.%u201di%u00a7 o k B eat by L.J. D a vitUnder normal circumstances I would bethe last person to complain about the newrevised edition of Norval White and ElliotWillensky%u2019s AIA Guide to New York City.Like its 1967 predecessor, the new Guide isbeautifully planned, delightfully written,and easy to carry. Moreover, the Brooklynsection is 32 pages longer than it was lasttime. To the dedicated amateur of thecity%u2019s architecture and iconography, this isstill the guidebooks and no others needapply.You may therefore picture my surprisewhen, on turning to page 370, I learnedthat the Albee Theater has at length beendemolished and the Rentar shopping mallhas been erected in its place. Moreoverthis event occurred in 1977, presumably atnight. So astonished was I by this wonderthat I immediately flung myself from mychair and hulled myself out the door, butthese gymnastics were nothing whencompared with the surprise that met myeyes at the foot of DeKalb Avenue. Thenew Rentar mall looks exactly like the oldAlbee Theater!You may think I%u2019m kidding, but I%u2019m not;you can go up to Albee Square and see foryourself. The perfection of the reproduction is, not to mince words, astonishing in* nm _ ^ U ----------Al l U . C i i l . _ y %u2022 i H W U t t U W i v u n m i i j M v v , U i vgraffiti on the walls, the tattered blinds in the windows have been duplicated exactly, and if the AIS Guide hadn%u2019t told me that it was the new Rentar mall, 1 would have said it was still the old Albee Theater and thus become a laughing stock. And to think, it%u2019s been there for a whole year. Progress gets more wonderful all the time. Th-se are%u2018That%u2019s the troublewith y o u NewYorkers . . .never pavingattention to yoursurroundings. I%u2019llbet you haven%u2019tnoticed thatSchermerhornPacific housingis underconstruction . . . %u2019stirring times to be alive, and 1 hurried right over to the beautiful new fast food stand in front of the railroad station and celebrated with a hot dog-a comestible that is as much a feast for the palate as thesplendid (and costly) sheet metal prosthesis is for the eye.Speaking of malls, the Fulton Mall is done, too. It was completed this year. The sidewalks have been widened, traffic has been restricted to buses, and pavilions and lighting have been added. It says so right on page 372. That%u2019s the trouble with you New Yorkers. Always intent on your own thoughts, never paying any attention to your surroundings. I%u2019ll bet you haven%u2019t noticed that the Schermerhorn-Pacific housing development is under construction, either (page 403; J. Sam Unger Associates, architects That ought to put a stop to all the loose talk, by golly. The people who want to build their cute little Dutch village will just have to build it somewhere else--unless, of course, lt missed the reference and they have built it* somewhere else, such as the middle of Cadman Plaza near the statue of Columbus that, I learn, originally stood in Central Park and not in a playground in Little Italy, as Borough President Leone believed when he bought it.BUT IT%u2019S FUNHo, ho. What fun we%u2019ve been having. To continue, if White and Wiiiensky want to say that Sydney Place is prettier than Garden Place, that%u2019s their nrivilege (there%u2019s no accounting for taste), but as the PHOENIX has conclusively proven, the Brooklyn Bridge was definitely not painted its original color in 1974. It was already painted its original color. It was painted some other color in 1974. There are two stories of apartments above H ubert%u2019s Restaurant in Bocrum Hill, not three,Brooklyn Friends School is either no longer on Schermerhorn Street or else I%u2019ve been sending my son to the wrong place for years, and I suppose White and Wiiiensky can't be expected to know that the oldest part of Holy Family Hospital used to be Sheltering Arms Foundling Home, whicn accounts tor the cherubs%u2019 heads on the facade. Nor can they be expected to know that, in 1973, I was authorized to offer the Jay Street firehouse to Penthouse%u2019s Bob Guccione for an entirely nominal rent(one peppercorn, if memory serves, and free passes to every member of the Chamber of Commerce), although it seems to me that this invaluable bit of local lore ought to be preserved somewhere.Call me a carping critic, dismiss me as a dastard and a poltroon, it%u2019s just that I get this funny feeling in the pit of my medulla oblongata whenever somebody takes it into his head to redesign my hometown just because h e %u2019s got a publisher%u2019s deadline. In Brooklyn, this is folly; nothing ever happens in Brooklyn when it%u2019s supposed to, and when it finally does happen, it usually isn%u2019t the thing that was supposed to happen; Brooklyn is the France of New York, not the Germany. Still, the new AIS Guide will doubtless be around for a long time, tearing down the Albee last year, building the Fulton Mall this year, and selling Sam Leone the wr mg statue in 1974, and these are scar s |y minor things. They are silly th' igs instead, and ! plan to march right up to White and Willensky%u2019s office in the new Rentar building and tell them so to their faces. As soon as I can find ,t, that is.October 5 ,197A THE PHOENIX. Page 29