Books: Elite Corps

The School of American Ballet had its start in 1933 with a legendary exchange between George Balanchine, then 28 and a Russian émigré choreographer living by his wits, and Lincoln Kirstein, two years his junior and a rich American aesthete with billowing ambitions to further the arts in his country. He invited Balanchine to start a ballet troupe in the U.S. The choreographer replied, "But first a school." As always, Mr. B. was right; a company like the New York City Ballet could not exist with the sketchy training that was available here.

Today S.A.B. is in effect the national academy of ballet, offering priceless schooling to those who survive its competitive rigors. It was nourished in part by Balanchine's inspired choice of zealous teachers, many of them Russian, and by his fecundity in providing peerless ballets for children to employ their little fund of steps (The Nutcracker) or to aspire to (Serenade, a signature work he began within ten weeks of the school's opening). Starting in 1963, the school also benefited from then unprecedented grants of nearly $6 million from the Ford Foundation, which allowed it to recruit the best prospects nationwide and bring them to Manhattan on full scholarship. The money was a virtual endorsement of Balanchine's technique and style over any other. The grant accomplished its long-range purpose: today at least ten of the stronger American ballet troupes are headed by S.A.B. veterans.

Youngsters who became stars, like Suzanne Farrell and Gelsey Kirkland, flutter through these pages, but the book is mostly a skillful portrait of the mercurial, infinitely resourceful Kirstein, who is still active, and the half a dozen or so teachers who dominate the curriculum. Listening to them is like sitting around the samovar. Alexandra Danilova, 81 and going strong; Antonina Tumkovsky, a strict classicist, in her fourth decade at the school; the ebullient Andrei Kramarevsky, a more recent immigrant--all speak with characteristic Russian vividness and disdain for the article as a part of speech.

The school must now survive without the firm hand of Balanchine, who died in 1983. Several important teachers are over 70 and will probably be replaced by retired City Ballet dancers, whose methods may be blander and more homogeneous. Last spring there was a public power scuffle on the school's board between the Old Guard and new benefactors. Dunning does little speculating about future problems. Wisely, she records the past and observes the present in clean prose and with the same eloquent good manners that mark a well-schooled dancer. --By Martha Duffy