Ballet

This post is not really about ballet, but about Wendy Whelan. She is a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. In the 1980s, when I lived in NYC, I went to see the City ballet often, and I saw Ms. Whelan dance many times. She is a wonderful dancer. She fulfills George Balanchine's credo: that ballet be beautiful. He used to say to his dancers, when you dance, you always have to look beautiful. If you raise a leg, make sure it looks beautiful going up and going down. I loved his ballets because there were no plots; just beautiful dancing set to music.

Back to Ms. Whelan. She is now 38, and having danced for 20 years at the City Ballet, the question is how she will know when to stop. This is the topic of a NYTimes magazine article today. The article explores her growth into ballet, and also explores her relationship with her husband, an artist. They married last September; the article calls him 'her longtime boyfriend'. Here is the part I liked. They met in 1993, when he first asked her out. Then:

"That fall, like dancers in any pas de deux, they glimpsed their future but returned to separate lives on opposite coasts and got distracted in other relationships. They kept in touch; four years later the timing was right, and they moved in together. They were engaged in Venice in 2004."

It's nice to know that they glimpsed their futures but still did other things and even got distracted, but in the end realized their initial feelings were correct.

I suppose you could say they believed.