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Patricia Marx interview each week at this time your city station brings you an interview with a leading figure in the arts politics or the sciences and here now to introduce today's program is Patricia Marx I'm delighted to have as my guest today one of America's leading ballet dancers Edward dilemma of the New York City Ballet Company Mr Avila was breathtaking leaps in gems have literally caused a sensation and his interpretation of the prodigal son has been called one of the greatest downs characterizations of our age Mr Billow I know you excelled at sports when you were young particularly baseball and boxing now this seems a far cry from classical dancing how and when did you get interested in the ballet well as most American male dancers I got interested in but I indirectly I have a sister who is a year younger older excuse me a year older than I am and my mother was taking her to a local dance school. When I was ten years old and I was staying at home playing baseball and so on with all the people. In my neighborhood and one day I was knocked unconscious by a baseball and when my mother heard that she insisted that I go along and she drag me along to these classes and I sat there and fidgeted and why do you want to do is conscious when you're going along you know. Uncomfortable but. And she said why why not take some classes she said Why just waste your time sitting and I said well you know how am I going to explain it to my friends and so on but she insisted and I took some lessons and liked it very much. Well when how did you come to know that you wanted to be a ballet dancer when did this strike you well that's that's a little hard to say because I did start that young and it was. Kind of an accepted thing but I would say that it really grew strongly in me at about fourteen when I began to have more control of my body I was I was stronger I was developing mentally as well as physically unfortunately a year later my parents decided that I should stop dancing and that I should go to college and I did I stop dancing for four years and went to college but now that I got that over with I said I've done something for you know I have to do what I really want to do and that's dance and I started biking and well I know when you're a few specially Russia the dancers devote their full life to dancing from the age of nine or ten do you think you can ever make up for the last time. Well that's that's such a difficult question to answer I can only say that that the loss of time has given me a greater drive and motivation. To catch up and make up for that last time the problem is that between fifteen and nineteen they were the the right years they were the years that well not right but the formative formative years and exactly that's one my body was. Could be pushed in and molded and developed and it's still possible and I'm I'm still doing that and molding and developing and so on but I did lose the last four years and well we'll just see. Did you meet much opposition in your once you do have to become about identity was this a hard decision to make oh it wasn't a hard decision for me at all it was a difficult decision I must say for my family because my father first of all I was dead set against it and so was my mother and I thought it was an impractical and secure occupation for a man and in a way it certainly is because. The years my productive years are very short and one man reaches his. Financial height say in life it's usually around forty forty five he's kind of made himself by then and he knows which direction he's going and when I reach that point I've I've got to look elsewhere because I can no longer really perform. With my full powers and I either stop gracefully or gracefully not. Or I become a choreographer or a teacher or Well it's it's that kind of situation. What attracts you so strongly to the ballet. Well first of all I think it's it's. A beautiful combination of of so many things of music of movement of. Theater in addition to that. Just the physical control that I can I can have of my body and you have to be holding back on the time. To phrase and get delicate. To make to jump well. Anyone anyone can jump but to jump and and be free and easy and to have a manly grace that's that's something that's so fine and so delicate it takes years and years of training to and it's a fantastic challenge for me dancing it's there are dramatic challenges there are musical challenges there are physical challenges there are mental challenges I think it's a wonderful life what gives you the most satisfaction from from your work well of course a good performance. An honest performance a performance where I've I've met the requirements technically musically dramatically and have solved the choreographers problems or the problems that that he's put my hands to phrase to bring a certain style to bring a dramatic flair or something to about and I had if if I can have a complete performance if I can meet all of those that's my greatest satisfaction and about when you're dancing are you expressing emotions or what do you trying to convey in your dancing I'm trying to reflect. The music the choreographers intend the dramatic aspects I'm I'm trying to make a theatrical experience for people it's not purely to be entertained people come to see lovely movement they come to see they come to experience emotion on stage they come to to see the decor and the lights and the sets and so on. I also hope that some people come to think by by that I I mean that everything that happens on stage shouldn't send them out in and out of the theatre running for some cause but they should. They should think about what went into it and how things are happening and understand the development of the barrel and the development of the music why the decor is is the way it is why the costumes are the white why we have special make ups why we we wear shoes instead of ballet slippers or. Things like that you don't want it's just a passive response of you know not at all not at all because well especially here in New York we have we have less of that because we have a very knowing audience in New York and it's most sophisticated audience and it's a pleasure to dance well for any kind of audience but for an audience that really understands you know if they can if they can see an exciting balance if they can get an excitement from a bounce which is which is a subtlety. As against you know a big jump and I think that a trick if they can get excitement and understand subtleties as well as as the bravado. So they have to be aware of the technique of what is doing well performed and what is difficult to perform absolutely and all the senses you know what the what. And the extremes on either and what the the very very delicate where you hold back hold back or the other's way where it's you throw things out when you've you know just let fly when you speak about holding back room or the sense of liberation what influences the way you dance how do you approach your role. First I try to find out what. Why the bad guy was done to begin with. Why the choreographer picked the music why he picked any idea if there is an idea. Determine what flair and what style I can bring to it and. Understand the music thoroughly so that I can understand the phrasing I can I can stretch things I can I can shorten things I can shadow I can. Almost paint I can make a small step very very small so that the next step which is large will look very very large against the smaller step and what determines whether you do this I mean how do you get your ideas from with the step should be small and then large What is the. It's a judgment I think what determines that is is experiencing is you know you you think what is theatrically right what's right for the ballet you it's an accumulation of many many experiences of seeing other dancers of having done other ballets of listening to music of looking at the core of it's you can't just put your finger on one thing and say that's what this is why I do that particular thing it just feels right whatever is right for that situation well does the emotion of the music is this very determining is is very important Absolutely I think it's the strongest point of determination it's. It's almost what why why we're doing what we're doing it's almost why the ballet is there because of the music so you feel the ballet is an extension of the music another means of it's expressing music. We repeat the music so to speak visually whereas the musicians repeat what's in front of them so that people can hear it so it's article. Most of all I know that ballet can be regarded as a means of expressing a whole philosophy or a whole prison's insight into life and you feel that as a dancer you were doing this or this is not this doesn't come to be here and I think I think it's. As you say it doesn't come to bear not for me in particular because when I'm on stage I'm I'm trying to to make a particular performance and I I do as much as I can with the experience that I've had both personally and professionally but it's it's difficult for me and I wouldn't even venture to say that I'm I'm on stage making a statement about life about my life and so on I think that that the ballets themselves the music themselves are making a particular statement and I am just there trying to point up what. Great composers and great choreographers have put before me and I can't say I think it would be unfair of me to take wonderful creations like that from fantastic composers and choreographers such as Stravinsky and Balanchine and to say that I am going to make a statement on my life what are your favorite roles to dance for my favorite role at this point is particle sun because it has technical challenges musical challenges and a vast dramatic challenge one that I feel I'm just beginning to touch I think there's so much more in that ballet that I can I can. Get out of it I think the more I grow as a dancer as a person as an artist the more I'll get out of that ballet and I hope that my understanding and experience grows and if it does and I have the ability to bring it to the ballet then I'm progressing and I think of course where we all want to to progress is your approach different to a rally with with a character role like prodigal son and an abstract ballet is there is a difference in approach Well of course you have the in Prodigal Son you have a very definite dramatic character that you have to establish with an abstract ballet you have to I would say more establish a style establish a musical understanding and a musical phrasing and a style for instance Donizetti done some Bastian variations that I do with about I has a particular talian flavor to it so of course my make up as dark or my. There's And I try to bring a certain attorney and style to the bowing and I can even do that phrasing musically or even just the holding of my hands or the holding of my head or the stretching of an arm or the shortening of an arm and in that way I can I can make a style for the bowing just you don't know what goes on in your mind when you're dancing are you lost in the music or you we're taking what are you feeling when you're when you're dancing Well the ideal situation. For me at any rate is that everything should be a conditioned reflex I should have such an understanding and. Knowledge of the music of the steps of the idea so that everything flows so that there isn't. The challenge to stop and think what's coming next yes because that that room's that runs the flow it runs if it breaks it breaks the continuity while this is happening if you actually don't have to wary about what the next step is then then what would you concentrate on what I like to do is to be in the role as far as possible and yet to to retain enough reality so that I can be slightly apart from myself and looking at myself so to speak and when that happens it's well it doesn't always happen but I I and I hope for it I wonder how you know when you're right and you can see yourself how do you know that your body is in the right place. Well after after him years of training and so on you get you get the right feeling you you can feel it you just it's sometimes it's a warm feeling it's an ease. About things so that when you master the steps they become easy I mean this is the sign in the right yes yes well that you know that it's not that you can you can just forget about them and toss them off you still are participating very strongly and you know you're so involved and so on but one of things flow easily when there's a give and take without rigid moments I wonder if you have any feelings about why the positions are the way they are. Because to somebody untrained about either they seem terribly awkward to try to get them you know yes they seem terribly awkward and but when you understand them and when you've learned and watched you can see how beautiful rightly beautiful they are when they're done correctly. When when you see a stretched leg and at the end of that leg a beautiful pointed toll. That's something. Linear it's something long it's something stretched it's something beautiful but if you see the same lovely long stretched leg and so on and at the end of it there's a floppy foot. Ghastly to even though you've been described as the American Ballet ideal an artist athlete and I wonder if you agree with this does give yourself well. I do have a. I do have the ability to to bring a and athletic quality to about play and I try to or have been trying to in my in my growth to to know how to use it where to use it when to use it and how much of it to use now that's that's the that's and that's where the development of an artist comes in when you know just how much and how far you can go with an athletic ability with a dramatic flair with. A musical understanding and the unfortunate thing is that when we have the experience and the background to be great artists by that time we're almost too old to dance. And it's sad and unfortunate it's not so with singing it's not so with acting it's not so with painting or composing and so on but we're so limited in that we we have to we have to understand it and and acquire it before our time runs out. Mr What do you think is the real difference between an acrobat and a dancer. It's it's basically the same difference between a dancer and an athlete there are wonderful baseball players for instance who jump and and there's an excitement they have a grace and there is a musical way that they move in they have to have perfect timing to catch a ball to hit a ball but there they don't have. First of all the artistic demands and discipline put upon them such as a dancer does if. A ball player is chasing a fly he runs runs runs the fastest way he can he jumps the easiest way he can and throws his arm up. And catches the ball but for a dancer it's entirely different you have you have all of your your basic positions you have you have the music you have all of these steps you have to go through all of the preparations have to be precise disciplined controlled musical So we have those kind of limitations and that's that's basically I think the difference between a dancer say in America. Mr you know what do you think are the most important qualities that make a dancer good or excellent. Of course you have a dancer has to have all of the physical attributes. Necessary. TO has to be. Reasonably intelligent has to be able to pick up fast getting further and he has to have a certain taste you has to have an artistic flair you have to have good hands arms legs back strength you have to have grace you have to have ease you have to have. Is a personality a very important thing and personality that you can project list and absolutely absolutely because there are you know there are dancers who have practically everything but I and I are very very fine doctors but they can be an interesting onstage I wanted you for your personality is on on the stage. Well it's. It's. It's a little bit extroverted course I'm. Getting away from that not that I mean I was what I what I mean is that. There are certain ballets that require this kind of excitement and there are other ballets that require. A noble quality or certain values that require strength certain values that require and he's in grace so I think that. What I'm trying to do now is bring a personality. To a particular personality to a particular bearing. And not always have and not Edward realized not always that exuberance and excitement because it's. It's in bad taste and bad taste to to to have a delicate classical ballet and to be flying on that I'm carrying on like it was a demi characters bow I miss you know it's been said that you rival launch can never win with your sky high leaps what goes into making a leap like this with what is the end we would have just the actual physical steps how do you explain that kind of height. Well. It's. It's a combination of of the feet the the laying this the back the the arms the head everything working simultaneously the way it should be working if one thing is a little late it's it's not the same you don't you don't go as high you don't go. As. It's not as clear a line a smooth online I know that he said when he was at the top of elite that he just stopped Do you get this feeling the very high point of the leap. Yes because the well there's to break a jump down I would say that there's the preparation the height of the jump and then the descent and the landing to anticipate the height of height of the jump and sort of. Make things work a little more just a split second before you hit the height of your job so that it's like and an added. Push another boost another preparation beyond the initial one and you you feel the height of that jump coming. And it's like another breath and you you can a whole load it's a split second of course but but the illusion it looks like you stop for a minute and there it's exciting to watch. Mr Bell you said that anything you do on a stage comes from experience is that going to be had outside of the ballet you bring to bear outside experience from what sources other than the ballet do you get the most inspiration. Or I would say. Almost any form of theatre for instance is a wonderful kind of inspiration it's it's so nice to be on the other side of the footlights and and see what else goes on I love to watch for a good plays and good operas and and wonderful musicals. And anything anything that has an artistic value anything that that has a particular value when something is good. And you can you can see what makes it good I think that's that's a. Very important point to take to it's an important place too. To look for for inspirations or it helps build an understanding for you if you can if you can see why something is good if you know why a score is so great why a painting why it appeals to you you know why is it the color is it that the mood is it what you know if I think I think that's inspiring that's artistically inspiring when God is so demanding does it in terms of time and thought is the price great limitations on the rest of your life oh great limitations the rest of my life. Every time I go to a party or every time I'm thinking of anything outside the theater I have to think back to that rehearsal schedule. Pretty rigorous. To what ballets I'm performing the next day and and so on what I have to prepare and it's it's I can never really get away from it because it's so it's with me all the time because of course my body and is with me all the time and if I'm tired how can I give a good performance if I'm. If I'm upset by something you know it's it's difficult to then I have another problem as far as performing is concerned I have to I have to fight to keep that outside of my performance and so on so it's it's very close to my life to all of it so I am terribly limited in that way. But but I don't I don't consider that limitations because I do enjoy what I'm doing it's a pleasure for me you are already one of the leading dances of New York City Ballet where do you want to go from here in thinking and thinking of my future i first and foremost almost the only thing I think of. Is that I have to be a better dancer and a better artist and that I must progress along those lines. And when you say where do I want to go from here. I think I think that I have to go someplace from here artistically and the better an artist I become the better dancer I become the better things will come. The better roles will come in the New York City Ballet better roles on T.V. shows better roles anywhere. The better I become artistically the better things will happen for me so I can say I can't sit down and say I want this to happen to me and that to happen to me and so on I have to make myself a better artist and then that or things will happen. Watching the process of you make you sad that it. Has Developed I want to thank you very much and it's been a great pleasure for me also you have been listening to Patricia Marx interviews join us again next Friday at five when once again we bring you Patricia Marx interviews. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah. Yeah. They are.