Danse Macabre

Dancing On My Grave

By Gelsey Kirkland

Doubleday; 286 pp.; $17.95.

GELSEY KIRKLAND lived the dream of many young girls. She was, for 10 years, one of the prima ballerinas of American dance. New ballets were created specifically for her by the finest choreographers. She was the hand-picked partner and lover of Soviet sensation Mikhail Baryshnikov. She guest-starred with companies throughout the world. She was hailed as the ballerina of our time.

But Kirkland's dream ended suddenly when--at the height of her career--she awoke to find herself a cocaine addict and an anorexic. In her autobiography, Dancing On My Grave, she shatters the idyllic image of the dance world and exposes the hardships and conflict that accompany the roses and the applause.

The picture Kirkland paints of the dance world is a dim one. In the New York City Ballet, dancers commit their bodies and hearts solely to their art. The late George Balanchine--the undeniable father of American ballet--insisted that his dancers be reed thin, without hips or breasts to detract from the line of the arms and legs.

Marriage and even love for anything except ballet was discouraged. No demand on the body was too harsh, no sacrifice to dance too great. It was Balanchine who first dominated Kirkland's world, and it is he who gave her special "vitamins" which allow her to dance while ill.

BUT THERE IS more to Kirkland's descent into drugs than the demands imposed on a dancer's body and emotions. Kirkland is cursed with the fatal possession of an active artistic mind and a drive for perfection. Her attempts to assert her individuality and to practice her craft, she tells us, were received almost universally with contempt by Balanchine and his disciples.

Motivation and psychological depth, emotion and dramatic intensity--these were qualities Balanchine attempted to repress in his dancers and in his ballets. He sought to replace personality with his abstract ideal of physical movement.

For a dancer of Kirkland's sensitivity, this was an atmosphere of constant frustration and loneliness. In her autobiography, she addresses with refreshing depth and specificity the artistic dilemmas presented by each role, by her desire to please Balanchine and the critics without being untrue to her own artistic instincts.

I...longed for a dance that portrayed the human drama with more depth and diversity. Such a dance was a seemingly impossible dream. I never uttered such ambitious words about my art, even to myself, without feelings of absolute loneliness and derangement.

In light of the pressures Kirkland faced as a ballerina, complicated by insecurities in her personal life, her path of self-destruction is not surprising. Supported by those who had a financial interest in seeing her perform, Kirkland survived on cocaine for three years, binging for days at a time, yet dancing to rave reviews. Only after six seizures and with the support of a new lover--now her husband and co-writer of the book, Greg Lawrence--was Kirkland able to overcome her addiction and temporarily leave the world of ballet.

AS AN autobiographer, Kirkland tends to blame others for her mistakes, dwelling on the injustices of ballet without fully exploring her own role in her fate. But as a commentator, Kirkland is at her best, exposing the many indignities faced by the dancer in an attempt to be an artist. The book is an insightful look at the vulnerability of the creative temperment, and the exploitation and pain which can result.

Dancing On My Grave promises to send a shock wave through the ballet world. Kirkland's story will change the way we view the romantic life of frilly tutus and delicate swanlike poses. As a more confident and mature Gelsey Kirkland prepares for her comeback, she has forced us to see that she is one of the lucky few to survive the dance with dignity.