Отрывки из главы "Erik Bruhn" в биографии Рэя Барры. Выбрала самое интересное, не стала копировать главу целиком, потому что уважаю копирайты, ладно, не очень уважаю, но там есть всякие общие места, и так всем известные. Упомянутый в первый строчке Джонни Рэй - любовник Рэя, которого Рэй оставил ради Эрика.
However poignant Ray’s affair with Johnny Ray had been, his intimate relationship with Erik Bruhn is one he particularly treasures to this very day. He considers it, on an emotional and intellectual level, one of the most important of his early career. <...> When Bruhn returned to Ballet Theatre in 1954 after one of his many engagements with the Royal Danish Ballet, Ray was already a member of the company. Ray got to know Bruhn when he brought his ballet slippers for painting. The slippers had to be coloured according to the tights the dancers wore, or cleaned if they were dirty. Ray and Leo Duggan were responsible for doing this task and it brought them a little extra money. Bruhn, who had the reputation for a roving eye in the company, would engage in light banter and flirtation with the two young men and they responded by teasing him. On a certain occasion when the company was touring by train, Bruhn and several of the dancers were enjoying a cigarette in the buffet car, discussing this and that. Slowly the group got smaller and smaller and all of a sudden Ray and Bruhn found themselves alone. Bruhn in his inimitable dry Danish way posed a supposedly rhetorical question laden with innuendo, ‘Well, where do we go from here?’ Ray was flustered as it seemed to be an invitation of a certain kind, but had the presence of mind for a hasty reply, ‘Nowhere, I think,’ and immediately got up and left the nonplussed questioner alone. The dismissive gesture probably made him all the more intriguing. Inevitably, they did get together. It happened while the company was performing in San Francisco and from then on, while on tour, they shared a room. It was at Bruhn’s insistence, despite his declaration, ‘I don’t belong to anyone,’ that they lived together when they were not on tour. For this reason they rented an apartment in New York as their base. From the beginning Bruhn took over as the dominant partner in the friendship and though only two years older than Ray, he came to exercise a mentor-like role. According to Ray, ‘I didn’t mind one bit, after all, he was the star of the company, a wonderful dancer and I was crazy about him. He really changed my approach to ballet. He taught me to take ballet class seriously and made me think about the motivation behind the steps. In all he was inspirational!’
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Ray’s friendship with Erik Bruhn naturally introduced him to a different style in classical dance: Bournonville technique – not that he ever properly studied it, but an awareness of its stylistic elements was definitely part of Ray’s educational agenda. Ballet Theatre, at that time, did not yet have any Bournonville choreography in its repertory and thus Ray had probably never seen anything by the nineteenth-century Danish master. He had no inkling of its quaint and delightfully fleeting dynamic. Therefore it must have come as a revelation when he was able to view the real thing: performances at Jacob’s Pillar by ten soloists of the Royal Danish Ballet in July 1955. The dancers included all the important names from the 1950s, including Mona Vansgaa, Kirsten Ralov, Inge Sand, Frank Schaufuss, Stanley Williams and Flemming Flindt. A more prominent assemblage would be hard to imagine; this period marked the start of the Royal Danish Ballet’s emergence on to the international stage. The Danes had been invited to that venerable location by, of all people, one of the founding fathers of American modern dance, Ted Shawn. Jacob’s Pillar, located in Massachusetts, was originally a farm when Ted Shawn bought the property in 1930. It was altered to serve as a base and theatre for his own troupe of male dancers. With time Jacob’s Pillar developed into a highly respected venue for dance in most of its forms: modern, ballet and ethnic. Workshops and performances are still given in summer. Ray: ‘I couldn’t believe how wonderful it all was. It really seemed as if I was allowed to see something from the far past but still vibrantly alive. Going to Jacob’s Pillar was such an experience; that, and meeting Ted Shawn.’ Ted Shawn seems to have been a big fan of Bruhn’s; if not, according to Ray, quite in love with him. In Bruhn’s (official) biography, a letter of Shawn’s is quoted. It begins, ‘Dearly beloved Erik.’ Written in November 1971, Shawn writes of seeing Bruhn’s memorable performance in Giselle on 1st May 1955: ‘when you did your first Albrecht with Alicia [Markova], and I cooked for you and fed you after that matinee; the next morning when sleepy-eyed you and Ray came in with leftover eggs and butter, etc.’5 As Bruhn’s breakthrough Albrecht debut had just been two months prior to the scheduled appearances of the Danish soloists at Jacob’s Pillar, he was invited to dance excerpts from Giselle partnering Alicia Markova as well as appearing alongside his colleagues in the final act divertissements from Napoli. And Ray was there lapping it all up. Later, accompanying Bruhn on one of the lay-off periods in Denmark, he got to know the Danes better. Ray: ‘They’re always ready to party.’
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John Gruen’s biography of Erik Bruhn does not whitewash that dancer’s personality, indeed it is frank about his interpersonal dealings with those closest to him. Bruhn was prone to depressive bouts caused by a feeling of insecurity about whether he could always live up to and maintain the high artistry he had achieved and that was expected of him. Frequently, feeling the demands and affections of his partners as being too intensive, he needed periods of withdrawal into himself. And he could become cruel and calculating. According to Ray, he drank a lot and smoked like a chimney; habits certainly not conducive to maintaining a healthy physical constitution for dance. However, in spite of the negative characteristics of his personality, there must have been something compensatory, a generosity of spirit that made him a loveable person. To all this neurotic tribulation, Ray must have functioned as an antidote. His was a steadfast commitment to the relationship; his down-to-earth dealings with plain living must have given Bruhn the security he needed and, at the same time, the assurance of being cared for. When John Gruen wrote his Bruhn biography it was not possible to really come out into the open and make clear statements about such things as sexual orientation, especially if the subject of the book was still alive. There is no overt mention of Bruhn’s bisexuality, though it is implied, and therefore nothing concrete about an intimate relationship between him and Ray. The relationship with Ray is mentioned obliquely. Nevertheless, in the last chapter of the book, there is evidence that it did mean something special to Bruhn. Gruen quotes Bruhn: ‘There is Ray Barra. He was in my life. We became very great friends when I met him at Ballet Theatre many years ago, and I still love and adore that man to this day. He’s done incredibly well for himself, first as a dancer, and later as a ballet master and regisseur. Ray was and is a wonderful person.’