Illustrated Daily; 6019; Parajito

When I saw Fion Tain and I saw her on stage dancing and just basically flying across it, that's what I knew I wanted to do. It is an ambitious undertaking, founding a resident ballet company for Northern New Mexico, but Mariko Murikami and her daughter, Corey Jean-Halk, are determined and they have some successes to show for it. Among other things, the Pajarito Ballet Theatre is New Mexico's only accredited member of the Southwest Regional Ballet Association.

Like other struggling performing arts groups, here in New Mexico and throughout the nation for that matter, it is not easy, money in an age of diminishing support for the arts is in short supply, but Mariko will not be denied. Her little birds, her Pajaritos, will fly. The parents said, could we not intrude for my own company? I said yes we could, but make sure that that is what you want, because if I want to start

it, it will not be for a recital, it's very hard, it's very disciplined, there is no outside life, there are no football games or homecoming if you're doing a fairs with a rehearsal. If we decide that the dancer is in the state and the treasurer of Corey Jean and I are to be put into this company, it is going to go for broke. I can't tell you how many parents meetings we work through and they say okay, sometimes I'm sure they regret it, when you know, really, when the parents are going, I say okay, here is our schedule and they look at the schedule and say you don't mean that, yes, yes I really do mean that. Mariko you're a long time resident of Los Alamos and I'm willing to bet that most people would not consider that a propitious place to begin a ballet company, what possessed you? She did, Corey Jean.

It's all her fault? Yes, it's all her fault, actually there was no one to teach her and I had taught most of my life anyway and so I decided that it was time she learned and I wondered to learn Russian style and I wanted to learn correctly and so I started small school and it just kind of grew right and kept going bigger and bigger and bigger. So you started this when Corey Jean was a child? Yes, the under enormous I would think, against pulling off a resident ballet company in Northern New Mexico, I mean that's what most people would say, you know, nice idea but you know, really these are pretty big obstacles you face, what do you see, the biggest obstacles you had to overcome? And still have to overcome. People not knowing what I really mean about a ballet company, so many people and even parents think, oh isn't that nice, they're up there dancing and they're thinking still back maybe

in recital and people that I talk to assume that there is no talent pool in New Mexico, not just Northern New Mexico but in New Mexico that our dancers have to come from out of state that the best ballet training has to be Balanchine style in New York and of course I think that he's great but he was also a Russian and so I think the best ballet training is from young all the way up just like they do in Russia or like Balanchine does, he starts one level very early in age and goes all the way through and that's what I see. When do you start, when do you start a kid? The best age, when do most people start? What's the best age? The best age is seven. Why? Their bodies mind cooperate and the body formation is where they can start a good turnout where you can look at them and say I want you to flatten your back and show them where the

spine is supposed to be. They're a very good age because they want to learn, they aren't too young to get bored. It's just a perfect age where the girls are concerned, they're our joyous, it's been fun to watch them since they were little and it's a thrill to watch where they are now. Your mother Corrigine started a whole ballet school, now you've got a ballet company on your hands because of you, it's all your fault. Was it your burning ambition to dance or was it your mother's burning ambition that you dance?

It was my burning ambition. I saw Margot Fontaine and Rudy Eiffel when I was four and she got me up, it was a delayed broadcast like at midnight so I could watch Sleeping Beauty and from that point on I said I want to be a ballet dancer, that's all there is to it and I begged her until I was about nine and because we were at a place where there weren't any teachers she said I won't teach you until we get to a place where you can learn from someone else it will be easier on both of us. So when we got to Denver that's when I started when I was 10 years old. You weren't seven? No. I started late but everything was there because as soon as I started they threw put me in intermediate classes and within a year they asked me to go into advance and start taking four to five days a week. I've heard other people say I had to dance when I saw Nuriyev or Fontaine or whatever. I don't think a lot of people quite understand what on earth must happen to a person that causes them to reach that conclusion.

How did you know you had to dance? What made you think this is what you had to do? It was just in me when I was born because there's no other way to explain it. When I saw Fontaine and I saw her on stage dancing and just basically flying across it, that's what I knew I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to fly across the stage and be able to look and to wear. That's what every little girl wants to do is wear the tutus and most of all everybody loves applause and they're extremely shy but that was, I think that's what intrigued me when I was four. You tore a ligament in your ankles I understand it when you were dancing with the New Mexico ballet company just a few years back. Yes. There was some doubt whether you would ever dance again or whether you ever should dance again as I understand it. That's right. What was that like? Terrifying. I had two doctors tell me that if I was their patient they'd make sure I'd never dance again because it seemed so hopeless in the first place.

It was worse than just a torn ligament. I tore my tendon, I tore my ligaments and cartilage. I ripped everything on the outside of my ankle that's possible to hold it together. When they went back in they had to put staples in and rubber and nylon in just to hold my foot together. I would think after all that pain, when you resume dancing and even now I would suspect once in a while you must, ooh, what if it happens again? If it happens again I have the choice, I have to quit and then I'll face facts and I'll go into my other career that I've already started. Has it affected your attitude towards your own performance? Yes, I'm more grateful. When I'm out there, I realize a lot of people don't realize how short your span is and you're so prone to an injury when you're a dancer. It made me very grateful to God that I was born with this grace and able to come back

and combat everything they ever said because when they said I'd never dance again. I've never been so torn apart in my life. I went through a lot of problems for about five years and it wasn't up until the past year that I finally got serious about it and decided, well let's give it one more final try and see how it goes and it's finally gone right. Are you graduated from Huron, South Dakota, high school, the 1950 went to Hollywood to what? Dance? No. I went to Hollywood to become an actress. On my life I danced but I really wanted to be an actress and I went out there, worked at the actress studio, also taught classes and I danced Latin rhythms on Alvera Street

which is the Spanish area. I taught for Velaz and Yolanda. I taught for Fred Astaire. I taught for the actress studio. I did Polynesian, I taught Polynesian and I kept thinking something's wrong. I went to act and every time I'd go to a movie audition I'd be cast as a dancer so I finally said forget it and went back home. Did you ever want to do one of those MGM musicals? I did. You did? Well 20th Century Fox, the King and I. Oh, tell me about it. Oh, well all the girls were crazy about Jury Antes, the dance director and a very good friend of mine, Bob Don was Yolbrenner's hairdresser. The one who kept his hair, his head shaved and polished and all that and so every day at lunch I would go watch them play chess and you know Yolbrenner'd walk on the set and say good

morning wives and I'd be stuck for an answer I'd look and go oh he was the most magnificent man. Tell me about Proud Heritage, the original ballet she folks are doing. Who did it and why? It was, actually it was a joint idea. We do, we have these twin things, although we aren't twins, we have these instincts. We were talking one day about what we wanted to do for the company and we decided we really needed to do something on the Southwest and for New Mexico and there was such a rich cultures that have never really been shown in one piece together so we decided that we would do that and I was raised in South Dakota. So the Sue Indians and Wyoming, Shoshone and Shayan was a culture that I knew very well. I was very comfortable with doing an Indian section. So

And Corriging recently became Roman Catholic and went to St. Pius and was one of really to have the Gregorian chants and the Catholic church and the second section which we did.

And of course the third section was easy and that's the p.s. section. It's the blending of a

little bit of the Anglo but the Mexican Indian and Spanish cultures altogether. It has turned out to be absolutely the joy of our lives and our dancers are very happy with

it. They are so into their heritage which is New Mexico whether they are Spanish or whether they are not or whether they just love what they are doing. Tell me about the kids. You're dealing with youngsters Corriging here at what 12-13? The average age is 14. When we made first entered regionals it was 13 but now it's 14 almost 15 so it's since we've had two years go by. Is it conceivable they will graduate and leave the company? We have two that are leaving in a year and it's going to break our hearts. How mobile are these youngsters? I know you want to take the company to other states. You even talk about taking it to France if everything goes well for you. Are these kids mobile enough to do that? I don't mean are they agile? Are they mobile? No, they are. They're very mobile. I think the parents are a little they're very hesitant about

letting them become that mobile but the kids have learned so much from the different areas that are we've gone to and actually it's made them much better people. They're much willing to accept everything rather than just tunnel vision so I think it's great and they love it. How much time does a kid have to devote? I mean say out of a week what's their commitment of time? Six days a week on half minimum two to three hours. Playing five hours on Saturday and five hours on Sundays. No spring vacations. No, I don't want to do it anymore. We say it all the time. I looked yesterday and I said I have three new gray hairs this week and we all do. I mean there isn't a time whenever whenever any of us don't say that. What do you do with it? The dancers themselves. They're great. You'd have to we're a very small company. We're a very tight company

although the girls we have one girl from Las Vegas, two from Santa Fe, another two or three coming out of Albuquerque. They all blend very well. How do you get them all together? I mean they have to converge at some time. Or they converge in Santa Fe at least once a week, twice a week really. Los Alamos goes down to Santa Fe, Santa Fe stays there. Albuquerque comes in, Las Vegas comes in. And then at least once a week everyone goes up to Los Alamos. It's a real frantic schedule. It is a very frenetic schedule but it's the only only thing we could do to be able to ensure the fact that our company had the best dancers out of New York, their New Mexico and to give the dancers from all towns a chance. Talking about the parents, the youngsters in your troop. Daughter, mother, mother, daughter. That's I would think a potentially volatile combination of the director artistic director. That has its moments. How's that work? She pulls rank.

Does she really? Yes. You always defer? I have to. She's my boss. That moment's fun. I probably stop my feet and storm off. But I'll be back in a minute. Just give me a chance to recover. We have an argument. It's usually just over choreography because she sees it one way and I see it another. But if we talk about it, usually what will happen is one person's choreography will get into that period of time but the next person's choreography will blend into it at some other point. So it works out real well. We get what we want and we fight for what we want but there are moments. Can you compromise on questions of choreography? I mean you talk about that. Is that possible? It's all right. It takes two different ideas and put them together and make them one. Yes. And that's when our choreography is the best. Will we see that in proud heritage? All the way through it.

All the way through it. Because everything is a compromise in that dance. How should we look? Where would we know if we saw it? That's a tough question. I don't know because sometimes people think that she's choreographed a section. It's more jazz and more modern and it's not her. She has gone too classical in a piece and I'll bring out the jazz or a modern move. The only thing I always win over is timing. The girls say that I speed things up or I get ahead of myself. I think I would understand, although I obviously don't, how you would learn to dance.

But how do you learn to be a choreographer? I don't think you do. It is a trial and error. Yes. You have to have the creativity for it. It's like how do you learn to be a great sculptor? How do you learn to paint with any authority at all? When we first started together, I looked back at the choreography and think, well, we didn't have enough depth there. We looked back at the old tapes. We have a good laugh. We have a very good friend. But he said, do you realize that once you video it, it's there to haunt you for the rest of your life?

That's true. We'll look and go, I don't know why I did that. So you feel you're still growing, still improving? Oh, I hope so. You know, balancing always felt that the next piece was going to be his best piece. And that's how I look at it. Couragey, as I recall, we first talked several months ago actually. And at that time, you said the biggest problem you thought you for a song was finding male dancers for the company. It's still this. Why is that a problem? I don't know. I can tell you that New Mexico is still basically not really aware that you can be a male dancer and not be sissy. And that you can do it for agility and improve like football players do it. Basketball players are starting to and baseball players. But to them, dance is dance and it's not macho. And I think that's the greatest problem we've

tested the historic problem in ballet, though. Yes, it is. And the only way we can do it is to just keep making it more aware, go into the schools. That's what we found to be the best we took, our guest dancer, into several elementary schools. And these young boys were thrilled, beyond the leaf, to see someone throwing a girl. They thought if anybody can throw a girl around, they can't be a sissy. That was that was that was the way to start solving the problem is start at the young age and get them to be accustomed to it. John Charles Salazar, our guest dancer, he's been teaching and they like that. They can relate to a male teaching and the parents come in and they see him and I always say, uh, do that lift with her. And the one I'm talking about is where she jumps up and he flips her up over her head and down and catches her down, knows to the floor. And the parents go, oh, wow, that takes a lot of training and strength. And then they're quite happy. If you could use a club foot, I would certainly join your troop. But as it turns out, I'm certainly not

qualified. You're a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you both. Thank you. We've enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm Hal Rhodes. Good night. One, two, three, four, five, one, two. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three. You

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