Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq

Even those with little or no interest in ballet will be moved by "Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq," a documentary about one of the finest dancers ever to grace the stage, one who, like Lou Gehrig, was struck down by a disease of unspeakable awfulness in the prime of her life (though, unlike Gehrig, she managed to live to almost 80 despite her illness).

A favorite pupil of famed choreographers, George Ballanchine and Jerome Robbins, Tanaquil, or "Tanny" to her friends. stood out from her ballerina contemporaries due to her unusual tallness and angular frame. The film chronicles her rigorous, sheltered youth, her tumultuous marriage to Ballanchine, her phenomenal success on the stage. And, then, just as she was on the top of the world professionally, tragedy - of a particularly cruel nature for a person used to making a living and perfecting her art with her body - befell her in the form of a severe case of polio, a case so severe, in fact, that she was forced to endure time in an iron lung and ultimately to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

Through an abundance of stills and kinescope recordings, we get to see a great deal of Tanaquil's work. These are supplemented by interviews with those who knew Tanny both on a professional level and as personal friends. Most poignant are the recitations of the letters Tanny wrote at the height of her illness, many of them from a rehabilitation center where she was receiving treatment. Her resolve and inner strength, along with her almost naïve hope for the future, pour forth in great abundance from the writings.

One thing that strikes us most in Tanny's post-polio life is her determination to remain independent in the face of her disability. And, indeed, the movie ends on a high note, as we learn that Tanny spent the better part of her life imparting her priceless wisdom and insight to young dancers from her wheelchair.

The movie provides an inspiring portrait of an inspiring person.

Tanaquil Le Lercq was a ballet dancer, the muse of both Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine (to whom she was married). Then at 27, she came down with polio. Although she regained the use of one arm, she never recovered her legs.

Nancy Buirski's documentary concerns itself with the second act of her long life -- she lived to be 71 --and the memory of her surviving friends, eked out with photographs and the few surviving kinescopes of her dancing. She seems to have been very good. Her struggles to learn to do everything again, from breathing to living on her own, is a story of inspiration that, happily, has vanished from the scene. Salk developed his vaccine, the last major outbreak of polio in this country was in 1955, when 2000 people came down with it.

My one cavil with this episode of American Masters is its use of the word "tragedy." What happened to her is sad, and her prominence at the time made it a national story, but what of the two thousand people who contracted polio the next year? This story of a member of the privileged class who lost some of her privileges leaves me a trifle cold.

I hate ballet and loathe inspirational films. And I love this documentary! Just a wonderful treatise on not giving up and folding your tent after being dealt an extraordinarily bad hand. I especially admired how LeClercq was able to write about her affliction, while in the throes of it, with a minimum of self pity and generous amounts of perception and wry humor. If she hadn't chosen to reinvent herself as a teacher LeClercq could have been a first rate diarist. I also like how director Nancy Buirski was able to weave through LeClercq's struggles with polio her conflicts with Balanchine and Jerome Robbins so that it felt like a seamless whole and not different documentaries vying for the same space. In other words, like a ballet this is a most graceful work. A minus. (First fifteen minutes are kinda slow, in my opinion, or I'd give it a 10).

One of the opening scenes of this movie shows Tanaquil dancing with Jacques d'Amboise. This really captured the essence of the film for me. Graceful effortless dancing, with emotional depth in an unusual and creative setting. Thus we are led into the story of Tanaquil Le Clercq, her upbringing in Paris and New York, disappearance of her father and with a strong mother.

Enter a genius father/mentor figure in George Balanchine and the future unfolds. The story is told with original photos and film footage. Personal interviews with Tanaquil's collaborators and close friends give us a 360deg picture of her development. Jacques d'Amboise, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Mitchell, Barbara Horgan and Patricia McBride gives us the inside information on an artist that embraced her craft and inspired others.

We are informed of the inspiring but difficult relationship with Balanchine. One interview with Balanchine might be of interest to Canadians. The interviewer was a reporter with the CBC (smoking his trademark cigarette) who went on to be the first separatist premier of Quebec - Rene Levesque! When Tanaquil comes down with polio, it is a bitter pill, considering her earlier performance at a polio benefit. This really heightens the sense of tragedy that seems to go part and parcel with great artistic achievement. However, she was not defeated and continued to lead a meaningful and vibrant life.

While part of me might have wanted more gossipy details at certain points in the film, overall this is a worthy tribute. Ms. Le Clerc was already in a wheelchair when I started going to the NYC Ballet, so I never got to see her dance. The archival videos of "Tanny" in this documentary are revelatory. And there are wonderful contributions from Jacques d'Amboise and Patricia McBride as talking heads. The film reinforces what I have felt for the past 40 years: that being alive during George Balanchine's (and Jerome Robbins's and Lincoln Kirstein's) life was akin to having Mozart across town. I had SEVEN subscriptions to NYCB in the 70's and 80's, and its repertoire and dancers have made my aesthetic what it is today.