(2/4) The original cast of Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun was Tanaquil LeClercq and Francisco Moncion.
In an interview with Nancy Reynolds, Tanny recalled, “He didn’t say much, only that it was a summer day [….] He said it was a sort of interlude after class—and you come in and look at yourself and try out things to sort of assess how you look and then you see him. I think the dancers know each other very well. The hair, fixing the toe shoes—Jerry uses what’s around.”
Francisco remembered: “Tanny never was innocent (unlike some later interpreters who have been winsome nymphetes); with her, the awareness was already all there, an element of knowing what it was about and being, in a way, provocative—not obviously, but just leading very carefully from one thing to another in a very subtle way.”
Quotes from Repertory in Review: 40 Years of the New York City Ballet (affiliate link)
Francisco Moncion and Tanaquil LeClercq, 1953
Photos by Frederick Melton
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