Dance: A New Sunbeam, Traveling Fast

At 16, Darci Kistler is on point

There are no subtleties in Darci Kistler's success story: she is a little girl's fantasy come to life. At 16 she has been given major roles by George Balanchine, the greatest living choreographer. New York City Ballet audiences, normally a reserved and sophisticated lot, cheer her on to three or four bows. Alexandra Danilova, a former prima ballerina, says that Darci has "a perfume in her dancing that makes you think, 'How beautiful.' "

She is a typical Balanchine dancer: lithe, leggy, fair-haired. She moves with the speed and clarity he demands. She seems to know instinctively what many talented dancers need years to learn: how to engage an audience. Even in a difficult role where rough edges show, she takes obvious pleasure in being onstage dancing. Her joy leaps right over the footlights and lets the audience share in her zest.

That, of course, is what show biz calls star quality. Darci's precocious fame is not without precedent: at City Ballet, Patricia McBride, Suzanne Farrell and Gelsey Kirkland all came to prominence at about her age. Still the clamor for Darci has surprised the company—which promotes its repertory rather than its stars—and Balanchine. He has forbidden interviews with her. Darci's career is only a few months old, yet her parents are already beset by promoters who are seeking endorsements. That's how fast a new sunbeam travels.

Darci took on her first major parts in Europe last summer while the company was on tour. In the current New York season, she appears in Bizet's Symphony in C, Raymonda Variations, Valse Fantaisie, Walpurgisnacht and Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3. Of these, the lyrical adagio in the Bizet is the most difficult, demanding regal presence and an enigmatic, almost witchy sexiness. But Darci is a very young princess, and the other quality is still beyond her. Nor did it help when, on the second night, a bodice seam split down to the waist. Darci went right on with the aplomb that is already her signature, swimming happily through the ballet's subaqueous rhythms, and looking like what she is, a California girl transfigured.

Within City Ballet, Darci Kistler has been watched closely since her first school workshop performance. During rehearsals for her final student appearance in Swan Lake last May, she had a hip injury, but danced "full out" the whole time. Says a friend: "She covered the pain for two hours every afternoon. It was sheer determination." Says Irina Kosmovska, who began teaching Darci in California when she was eleven: "Darci was a fountain of energy. She tried everything. She was one of my most intense students—she would commit suicide on the floor."