Balanchine's Last Ballerina Bids Adieu

Earlier this month, New York City Ballet principal dancer Darci Kistler announced that she would bid goodbye to the stage during
the company’s 2010 season.

Over the course of her illustrious 30-year career as an NYCB dancer, Kistler interpreted leading roles in many ballets, ranging from George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty to Agon and Symphony in C. In addition to taking on works from the Balanchine canon, she was offered numerous roles by Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins, the current ballet master and Kistler’s husband.

Balanchine, the NYCB’s legendary co-founder, spotted Kistler soon after she moved to New York from her native California to study at the School of American Ballet. In a matter of only two years, she rose through the ranks of the corps de ballet and was appointed soloist. By 1982, the 17-year-old dancer had become the youngest principal in the company’s history.

It is an unfortunate fact of life for dancers that their chosen career is limited in duration and often cut short or interrupted by injury. Kistler is no stranger to this occupational hazard—she was sidetracked early in her career by an ankle injury and later took temporary leave for spinal surgery. But after every challenge, she returned to the stage.

Kistler has the supreme distinction of being admitted to the exclusive club of “Balanchine ballerinas” singled out by Mr. B (as he was affectionately known) himself. Kistler’s upcoming retirement is especially significant, then, because the NYCB is losing not only an outstanding dancer in her own right, but also the final Balanchine protegé.

Once she leaves the company in 2010, the NYCB will be filled entirely with dancers hired by Peter Martins. As Martin explained in a NYCB press release made public on February 5, “Darci’s retirement marks an important milestone in ballet history as she is the last of the Balanchine ballerinas. With the conclusion of her dancing career, the torch will be completely passed to a new generation.”

Kistler’s decision to retire is coupled with a desire to dedicate more of her time to teaching classes at the company-affiliated School of American Ballet, where she has served as a member of the faculty for the past 15 years.

While members of the ballet-viewing public may no longer have the privilege of seeing Kistler herself onstage, they will be able to enjoy the product of her teaching efforts as her students take the stage. In her retirement, Kistler will join a host of other dancers-turned-teachers who provide the vital link between the rich past and the promising future of classical ballet.