Entertainment

The Bolshoi's Denis and Anastasia Matvienko are the star dancers at this weekend's Majestic Ballet Gala. But they're sharing the limelight with Chita Rivera, she of the splendid legs and magnetic personality.

Matt Nager / DMN

Denis and Anastasia Matvienko of the Bolshoi Ballet

Ms. Rivera came to Dallas on Friday to accept the first Texas Ballet Theater International Performing Arts Award.

At 72, the Broadway dancer-actress-singer has no plans to hang up her dancing shoes. But she is taking a break to receive the award, which is presented to individuals "who have made a lasting impact on the performing arts."

For Ben Stevenson, Texas Ballet Theater's artistic director, the choice was a natural. Early in his dance career he detoured from his ballet training to work in the musical theater in London. He met Ms. Rivera there and spent many evenings with her.

Ms. Rivera also detoured from ballet, but unlike Mr. Stevenson she stuck with musical theater.

Was it a fluke or something predestined that got her to audition for Call Me Madam when she was 17 and still on scholarship to George Balanchine's School of American Ballet? A friend was nervous about auditioning and asked Chita to tag along. Ms. Rivera won a starring role.

"It changed my life," she recalled in an interview Friday. There was no going back to ballet; musical theater "was the path that lay ahead for me." West Side Story and Kiss of the Spider Woman, Can-Can and Chicago prove her instincts were correct.

Ms. Rivera counts ballet training as the foundation for her career and still starts off every morning with barre exercise.

She has good reason not to slack off: This fall she reprises The Lesson for a Broadway run and beginning in January will be touring her retrospective, A Dancer's Life.

How well she remembers specific roles depends on the choreographer. When Jerome Robbins asked her to teach the "America" number to Debbie Allen for a 1980 revival of West Side Story, more than 20 years after Ms. Rivera created the Anita role, "I brought my skirt – the steps were in my skirt. With great choreography you can remember; with not so great you forget immediately."

Ms. Rivera says there's no single key to her long-term success. "It's everything. It's training, dedication, passion and luck. I worked with great choreographers, directors, composers, and it rubs off."

E-mail msputnam@sbcglobal.net