In general, [George Balanchine]'s dancemaking "just pushes you to the limit," she says. "It always has to be bigger, faster, longer, jump higher, turn more." While she was staging a Balanchine work recently, a young dancer made the apt comment, "I get it -- it's extreme ballet."

It's true that Balanchine hated a Method-acting approach. "Classicism is enduring," he said, "because it is impersonal."

[Joysanne Sidimus] agrees. The elegy (final movement) in Serenade, she says, seems to hint at a storyline. "I once asked him point blank, 'Mr. B., did you have something in mind?' He looked at me with a little smile on his face. He said, 'Dear, when there are two women and a man, it's about something.'"