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Maria Kowroski
New York City Ballet
Interviewed by Dale Braunerl
published in Ballet Alert! (No. 31-32) 2003
copyright © 2003 Dale Brauner

 

For the last three years, the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia has spread a magnificent feast before ballet fans for two weeks in late February. Although the Mariinsky International Ballet Festival often features premieres—of both reconstructed favorites and new choreography—one highlight for the attendees is the appearance of noted guest starts from top companies around the world. In fact, the festival’s motto is AThe Theatre of Open Doors.

This year, the Mariinsky welcomed, among others, the Royal Ballet’s Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg; Paris Opera Ballet’s Agnes Letestu, Jean-Guillaume Bart, and Manuel Legris; Nikolay Tsiskaridze of the Bolshoi Theatre, and New York City Ballet’s Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski and Jock Soto.

A highpoint of the fortnight was the partial realization of a dream per-formance George Balanchine’s Jewels, with French soloists in “Emeralds,” Americans in “Rubies” and the hosts in “Diamonds.” Kowroski performed the tall soloist role in “Rubies” and Odette-Odile opposite the Mariinsky Ballet’s Daniil Korsuntsev in Swan Lake.

The NYCB principal dancer was approached by Mariinsky Ballet’s director, Makharbek Vaziev, a few years ago. “I was leaving the stage and he said, ‘We would love to have you come dance with us at the Kirov,” Kowroski recounts. “‘Wow, I would love to.’ But I really didn’t think it would happen. A year later, the [Mariinsky] wrote Peter [Martins, NYCB’s Ballet Master in Chief] and asked if I could guest with them. That’s how it all happened.”

Kowroski was coached in part by Mariinsky principal Uliana Lopatkina.

“She was in town getting surgery on her foot,” the American dancer said. “Igor [Zelensky, Kirov Ballet principal dancer and former NYCB member] had suggested that I work with her and [that she could] help me with the chore-ography. As it turned out, she not only helped me with the choreography, she helped me with everything. We’re very similar. We’re both very tall and long, so we have similar problems with different steps. She gave me little tricks to help me out.”

While Lopatkina imparted the famed St. Petersburg style, she also urged Kowroski not to lose herself. “She tried to help me, but said, ‘They want you for you,’” Kowroski said. “She didn’t want to change me. It’s very different. I would have had to study there [in Russia] for a long time to get that style. I tried the best I could but it was just very different.

“I think a learned a lot about the story there. Uliana really broke it down for me in rehearsal—now you’re feeling this, now you’re feeling this way. Every step has some meaning to it. Every single thing has something.”

The style and new choreography was only one thing Michigan native had to contend with. She also had to get used to a new partner, different style costumes, a raked stage and the cultural differences of the Mariinsky audience.

“First of all, to do Swan Lake over there is very scary,” Kowroski said. “[The ballet] began over there and there are so many ballerinas there associated with it. I was worried that I wouldn’t live up to what they wanted. I had to put that aside because I knew I wouldn’t [dance like a Russian ballerina]. I just did the best that I could. I think by the end of the per-formance [the audience] warmed up a little bit. But I know it wasn’t the same reception they give their own dancers. It was really scary for me.”

Dancing Rubies was more familiar, but Kowroski did not see it as an oppor-tunity to show the Russians the native New York-style of the work.

“I wasn’t supposed to do Rubies there,” she said. “They had asked me the day before. I hadn’t done it in four years. I wasn’t sure I remembered and I wanted to make sure I did before said I would do it. One of their ballet masters taught it to me and I did remember it.

“My only thought was that it was good for me to go out on an unfamiliar stage doing a ballet I’m comfortable in, in my style, before doing Swan Lake here. That was the feeling I got. Of course, you want to show them this is how we do it at the home of Balanchine, but I was so nervous I just wanted to make sure I could get through it, that I wasn’t thinking on showing them this is how it should be done. But I did my best. It was hard to tell what the audience thought.”

Kowroski will be able to take her experiences and the things she learned in her coaching sessions with Lopatkina and Russian ballet mistress Ninel Kurgapkina home to apply to the Swan Lake she performs in New York. “[Kurgapkina] was so nice and had wonderful things to say. I felt like I really learned a lot from her. I wish I had more time with her. She said, ‘You should come, two months, to work on Swan Lake.’ Even though the choreography is different, I’m trying to find the meaning in the steps. Any of the arms they had given me, or advice, I’m trying to apply.”