Christine Sarry (published 1992)

Sarry talks about learning the role of Swanilda in Coppelia and crafting a "flashy" ending for her final performance of the Aurora Variation.

Biographical note:

Sarry got her start in the ballet world when she was scouted by the Joffrey Ballet in high school. From there, she joined the compamy of the American Ballet Theater, where she first played Lizzie Borden in Agnes de Mille's revival of Fall River Legend. Making the controversial decision to leave ABT for Eliot Feld's company in 1974, Sarry enjoyed a more contemporary and forward-thinking approach to choreography and performance. Sarry became a teacher at Ballet Tech, New York City's Public School for dance, and became it's Director of Ballet Faculty in 2003.

Pratt SILS LIS-665, Barbara Newman

April 26, 1979

Copyright

Restricted. To access full length audio or for further inquiries please visit our contact page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWQi4m-WYFI

Newman, B. (1992). Striking a balance: Dancers talk about dancing. New York: Limelight Editions

sarry1979apr26_sidea_clip.mp3

Interviews recorded on cassette by Barbara Newman

Barbara Newman, Christine Sarry

Audio Cassette Tape

mp3

sarry1979apr26_sidea.wav, sarry1979apr26_sideb.wav

00:03:27

128 kbps/44.1 kHz

Barbara Newman

Christine Sarry, 1946-

New York, NY

"Watching Christine Sarry in classes taught by Richard Thomas and Barbara Fallis, I gradually identified the quality that makes her dancing more than the sum of its parts. A chameleon onstage in a repertory that is one long contradiction, in the studio she works with the unadorned clarity and quiet efficiency of all professionals but with one remarkable difference. Each time a combination is described, something leaps out of her eyes - anticipation? imagination? - grabs the words or sketched gestures, and races ahead with them to what they might become, how she might realize them. You see in her face a delighted facsination with the problem and a passionate eagerness to investigate every possible solution; it's like watching a computer enjoying its own ability to compute. Avid for the infinite treasure beneath the vocabulary's apparent austerity, she shows you both what she can do and what she hopes to do, her knowledge and her dreams. Confident that her motives and methods would emerge no matter what we discussed, I asked her to talk about Swanilda simply because it is better known and more widely performed than many of her roles," Barbara Newman (1992).