Little Flowers Are Budding On Ballet's Family Tree
Kisselgoff, Anna
The New York Times
December 03, 2002
There is an extra family feeling to the cozy Christmas party in ''The Nutcracker,'' now in
New York City Ballet's annual run at the New York State Theater. Rarely have so many
dance dynasties been represented in one ballet in one season.
Libby Coleman's grandmother is the former City Ballet star Melissa Hayden. Alexandra
Warrick's mother is Helene Alexopoulos, who retired this year as one of the company's
ballerinas. Nicholas Fokine's great-grandfather Mikhail Fokine was one of 20th-century
ballet's greatest choreographers. Alexandra is 8 while Libby and Nicholas are 9: all are
ballet students who are performing this year in George Balanchine's beloved 1954
version of ''The Nutcracker.'' Nicholas, a ''Star Trek'' fan, calls the convergence of
descendants ''Ballet: The Next Generation.''
Ask la Cour, 20, is in a different category, already a professional dancer in the Royal
Danish Ballet. Yet his debut with City Ballet is also set for ''The Nutcracker'' and he, too,
is part of a famous ballet family. His mother is Lise la Cour, formerly associate artistic
director of the Royal Danish Ballet, where she started her dancing career as a child. She
is also the mother of Ask's half brother, Nilas Martins, a principal in City Ballet, whose
father is Peter Martins, the company's artistic director.
The weight of history lies lightly on the smallest shoulders. In rehearsal, Nicholas has
been instructed by the children's coach and teacher, Garielle Whittle, to speak naturally if
sotto voce at the 19th-century Christmas party in Act I. When Fritz, the young host,
inquires about his guests' journey, Nicholas said he replies: ''It's been such a long way. It's
cold outside.''
''Then when Fritz asks me, 'How did you get here?' '' he continued, ''I say, 'I just took the
66th Street crosstown.' ''
Nonetheless the children, pupils at the company's School of American Ballet, take their
heritage seriously.
Asked which ballets he likes best, Nicholas's impish expression turned grave: ''Greatgrandfather's,'' he said, picking out landmark ballets that Fokine choreographed early in
the 20th century in Russia and for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. These include ''Firebird,''
''Les Sylphides'' and ''Scheherazade,'' which he has seen live or on video. Making a case
for a strong gene pool, he added: ''I like to make up dances in my head and do them with
fingers. I already have 100 ballets in my mind, some with music, some without.''
Alexandra, whose twin brother, Grayson, was also accepted at the School of American
Ballet but who prefers tennis, started at 4 in a pre-ballet class in another studio. ''I said,
'This isn't ballet,' '' she recalled. Rising from a chair to demonstrate what she had rejected,
she waddled and jumped with legs parallel rather than turned out the classical way. ''I
wanted to do what my mother was doing. It wasn't dance to me, and if my mother could
do it, so could I.''
Ms. Hayden, who retired from City Ballet in 1973, is the dancer Libby admires most.
Libby has seen her grandmother dance on film and has watched her sister, Emma, a 15year-old student at the school, perform in ''The Nutcracker'' and in the garland waltz in
''The Sleeping Beauty.''
Libby's aunt, Jennifer Coleman, danced with the National Ballet of Caracas and John
Clifford's Los Angeles Ballet. She is the sister of Libby's father, Stuart Coleman, who is a
lawyer and on the board of the school. Mr. Coleman and his wife, Alice, met on a blind
date at City Ballet. ''His tickets were in Row K, center,'' Ms. Coleman said. ''I knew this
was for me.'' Libby's brother, Teddy, 13, plays in chess tournaments. Although Mr.
Coleman and his lawyer father, Don Coleman, were immersed in Ms. Hayden's dance
career, he and the other parents said they did not push their children into studying ballet.
''It's a hard life,'' he said.
Libby said, however, ''I do want to be a dancer because I love it and because I have gone
through so many generations of watching my sister, my grandma and my aunt.''
This is her second year in the party scene in Act I, and she is also one of the candied
angels who scoot around in Act II in the Kingdom of the Sweets ruled by the Sugar Plum
Fairy. Both she and Alexandra take naturally to the unison gliding with bent knees that
gives the illusion of angels floating by. Ms. Whittle, who has picked and taught the
children's casts since 1984, told them to move on the odd count. ''The angel ahead of me
goes on the first count and I go on 3,'' Libby said.
The children, scheduled to perform in alternating casts during the 46-performance run,
are to be paid $10 for each appearance. As Alexandra noted: ''They pay us for dress
rehearsals, so it's 25 nights. Now that my brother found out we're getting paid, he wants
to be in it, too.'' Taking the long view, Alexandra added: ''I love being onstage. I have
always wanted to act and dance. I've always wanted to be in musicals.''
When she said candidly, ''I had high hopes of a main part in a ballet,'' her mother
reminded her this was her first year in ''The Nutcracker.''
In recent years Alexandra has traveled on tour with her mother and her father, Lance
Warrick, a lawyer. Her schedule is full. Ms. Alexopoulos, who speaks Greek, sends her
daughter to Greek school at their church. ''First I have church, then I go to soccer and
then to ballet rehearsal,'' Alexandra said. ''My legs are pretty much tired, but when I
dance, my legs just won't stop.''
Ms. Alexopoulos has coached her and said that through Alexandra she discovered details
in ''The Nutcracker'' that she had missed while dancing its ballerina roles. ''There were all
sorts of things I was not aware of,'' she said.
Michael Fokine, Nicholas's father, said his son had never seen the City Ballet's
''Nutcracker'' onstage although he had seen the video of the production many times. On
the other hand, those who think ''The Nutcracker'' is not the only way to introduce
children to ballet would agree with the unusual scope of Nicholas's dancegoing.
He is especially enthusiastic about Peter Martins's ''Jeu de Cartes,'' a work set to
Stravinsky that even adults would see as sophisticated. The playing cards on the backdrop
reminded Nicholas of solitaire, one of several games he plays on the computer. He also
likes William Forsythe's ''Herman Schmermann'' and Paul Taylor's parody of
psychoanalysis, ''The Sorcerer's Sofa.''
It was his own idea, Nicholas said, to study ballet. His sister, Alexandra, 14, studies art,
and his father, Michael Fokine, studied dance but has now gone back to graduate studies
in philosophy after working in market research. Nicholas's father and his aunt, Isabelle
Fokine, license Mikhail Fokine's ballets and administer his estate. They are the children
of Phyllis and Vitaly Fokine, a dancer and teacher who was the son of Mikhail and the
dancer Vera Fokina, who settled in New York after the Russian revolution. Nicholas
noted that his mother, Ursula, is of German descent, which tied in with the German
setting of ''The Nutcracker.'' Asked what kind of families were at the Christmas party, he
said: ''I think they're rich. I have gold on my buttons, and I feel like I'm in a fancyshmancy mood.''
In Denmark children usually take their first steps onstage not in ''The Nutcracker'' but in
August Bournonville's 19th-century ballet ''Napoli.'' Mr. la Cour, speaking by phone from
Copenhagen, said he had nonetheless danced in Flemming Flindt's version of ''The
Nutcracker'' as a boy.
Originally involved in soccer, he started ballet at the Royal Danish Ballet school at 9
rather than 8. His mother, who is currently teaching at the school of the San Jose Ballet in
California, said that Mikkel, Ask's 18-year-old brother, takes after their father, the
conductor Frans Rasmussen, and is studying music. But both Ask and Nilas Martins, her
eldest son, wanted to dance.
Ms. la Cour agrees with Ask's decision to accept Peter Martins's invitation to join New
York City Ballet. ''A dancer's career is short,'' she said. ''New York City Ballet is a place
where, if you want to be a dancer, you can dance a lot.''
Ask added: ''I like most of what we're doing here in Copenhagen. But I would really like
to do Balanchine and Peter Martins's ballets because there's a lot of energy there.'' He is
aware that he is in for a change of pace. ''We have a month to rehearse one ballet in
Copenhagen, and we don't dance as fast,'' he said. ''But I'm not afraid of it. Maybe I
would not be coming if it weren't for my big brother Nilas and Peter Martins. But I'm
looking forward to it.''
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Copyright New York Times Company Dec 3, 2002