Darci kistler biography of donald
•
COVER STORY : AGAINST ALL ODDS
NEW YORK — At age 5, Darci Kistler wanted to be a ballet dancer. At 14, she left home to train in New York, where she became the last in Balanchine’s great line of proteges. Now 27, she has overcome a career-threatening ankle injury to reign as the most mesmerizing American ballerina of her generation.
The din of stagehands’ hammers nearly drowns out the pianist playing the Gershwin music to “Who Cares?”--a ballet by George Balanchine. Most of the dancers are simply “marking,” walking through the steps to rädda energy for the evening’s performance at Lincoln Center. But as rehearsal unfolds, one ballerina is dancing full out, caught up in the music, oblivious to the background noise, so happy she looks as though she fryst vatten in her idea of heaven.
Darci Kistler dances so intensely that as she whips through a chain of fast turns, her very long strawberry blond hair--the hair Balanchine once told her never to cut--flies loose from its bun and twirl
•
After 30 years of dance, a final bow
She was George Balanchine’s last ballerina. Now, after 30 years at New York City Ballet, 46-year-old Darci Kistler is taking her final bow.
Kistler has been magic onstage since she was 16. Sunday’s farewell performance will cap a career that’s lasted longer than anyone thought it would. The 5-foot-7 blonde was dogged by back problems and a broken ankle that, misdiagnosed, sidelined her for a year.
Nor was her personal life — she married Peter Martins, Balanchine’s successor, in 1991 — without its rough patches. (An assault charge she filed against Martins six months into their marriage was later withdrawn.)
Not that she’s complaining. According to her, everything really was beautiful at the ballet.
“I just loved the work, and I love to dance,” she says. “I felt this was time. I’m ready for a new adventure.”
For now, that includes sitting down once in a
•
NEW YORK - She always made it look so easy. Just watch Darci Kistler in the 1993 film "The Nutcracker" and you almost believe she's made of spun sugar rather than muscle and bone.
"I just loved to work," Kistler said. "I loved to sweat, I loved to try to make my tendues better, my pirouettes better, my jumps better."
For 30 years - longer than most modern ballerinas have been alive - Darci Kistler danced for the renowned New York City Ballet.
Gallery: Darci Kistler
But she wasn't born wearing a tutu. She grew up in Southern California, wanting to be just like her four older brothers until, she told Tracy Smith, a family trip to see Rudolf Nureyev in "Sleeping Beauty" changed everything.
"When he came out, my brothers started to giggle, 'cause he was wearing tights," Kistler said. "And they thought it was, you know, a little - too much was showing. So they started to laugh, and my mom started to giggle. And I remember thinking, What are they laughing at? Wow could they laug