333 Ballet Dancers Set a Record

Good morning. Happy to be back after vacation. Today we’ll look at how 333 ballet dancers spent a minute breaking a record that had stood for five years. We’ll also get details on the arrests of pro-Palestinian activists at Columbia University.

Larissa Saveliev was working the phone like a commander redeploying troops. She wanted a platoon’s worth of young, able-bodied people sent to where she was, pronto.

She was calling for ballet dancers, not soldiers.

Saveliev, the founder of Youth America Grand Prix, which she describes as the world’s largest student ballet scholarship organization, had organized a stunt: capturing the record for the most ballet dancers on point at the same time. She needed at least 307 to beat the mark set in 2019.

But only about 290 dancers had shown up.

So Saveliev put out calls while the dancers on hand, some as young as 8, lined up in a ballroom-size space at the Plaza Hotel and waited. A sea of tutus rippled and fluttered as they practiced pliés or put their arms over their heads and moved into what is known as the fifth position.

Some talked about appearing in “The Nutcracker,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Swan Lake,” or hoping to. Some talked about the reason they were there, which was to be recognized by Guinness World Records for the “most dancers ‘en pointe’ simultaneously.” Bianca Vezzali, 12, from San Diego, called it “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Under Guinness’s rules, once enough dancers were there, they would have to stay on point for 60 seconds. Bianca was not worried. “One minute isn’t that hard,” she said. “I’m so used to doing it for longer.” Kendall Morgan, 13, from Los Angeles, said it took practice and strength to stay on point “and make it look good.” But like Bianca, she said she was ready. “This is something we’ve worked on since we were little,” she said.

The record they were trying to break was set in 2019 on the morning television program “Live with Kelly and Ryan.” One of the hosts, Kelly Ripa, took part after saying it was the first time she had danced on point in 33 years. She lasted the minute.

This time around, the rules were the same. Tina Shi, the adjudicator sent by Guinness, was clear that everyone had to stay on point for a full minute: “If they drop, they will be disqualified.” Ashley Bouder, a principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, was on hand as an expert, as required by Guinness, to confirm that the dancers were on point correctly.

Saveliev, who danced with the Bolshoi Ballet until she defected in 1993, timed the stunt to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Youth America Grand Prix and the final rounds of auditions that it holds each year. She started Youth America Grand Prix after moving to New Jersey and realizing there was a need to connect dancers of diverse backgrounds with ballet schools. Youth America Grand Prix has since awarded more than $5 million in scholarships.

Before long, young dancers who responded to Saveliev’s calls began arriving from Lincoln Center, where they had been rehearsing for an appearance at a gala for Saveliev’s group.

But it still looked like a squeaker as far as smashing the record was concerned, so others were recruited. Among them was Lola Abigail Koch, a former Bolshoi dancer who said she stopped performing in 2010 and now teaches at the Joffrey Ballet School. She also runs the nonprofit Ballet Support Foundation.

“It’s still in my DNA,” she said, strapping on ballet shoes.

Would they make it to 307?

Katya Orohovsky, a dance teacher from Hattiesburg, Miss., signed on as No. 293 after squeezing into size 3 toe shoes. “I was like, ‘How desperate are you?’” said Orohovsky, who wears a size 6.

Bouder rushed in with a batch of ballet shoes. Marcella Guarino Hymowitz, a former dancer who was the creative chair of the annual gala for Youth America Grand Prix, took a pair, stuffed in tissue as makeshift toe pads and signed on as No. 294.

The other chair of the gala, Lesley Thompson Vecsler, signed on as No. 295. “My toes are not used to this anymore,” said Vecsler, who studied with the Washington School of Ballet and danced as an undergraduate at Duke University.

Finally, it appeared that there was the equivalent of a quorum — enough dancers to beat the record from 2019. “You cannot touch each other,” Shi told the crowd. “You cannot lean on others.”

She counted down: “Three! Two! One!”

The room seemed to ascend as the dancers rose on point. A snippet of Tchaikovsky, slightly longer than a minute, played over the public address system.

When the music ended, Shi conferred with volunteer witnesses around the room who had kept watch. Then she made it official: With 333 dancers taking part, a record had been set.

Weather

It’s a partly sunny day in the mid-50s. Prepare for a chance of showers at night, with lows in the high 40s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until Tuesday (Passover).

The latest New York news

Police arrest pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia

The president of Columbia University called in the Police Department on Thursday to empty an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators and arrest dozens of defiant students.

“I took this extraordinary step because these are extraordinary circumstances,” the president, Nemat Shafik, wrote in a campuswide email a day after she told a Republican-led House committee that Columbia was prepared to punish students for unauthorized protests.

Shafik’s decision sharpened tensions on Columbia’s campus, the scene for months of demonstrations in support of Palestinians — demonstrations that some Jewish people considered antisemitic. My colleagues Sharon Otterman and Alan Blinder wrote that it was not clear whether the harsher tactics would provide a model for officials on other campuses, or would mostly infuriate and inflame.

Shafik sent the email as New York City police officers in riot gear marched on an encampment of about 50 tents that had gone up on Wednesday, just as Shafik was getting ready for her congressional appearance. She testified that she had been frustrated “that Columbia’s policies and structures were sometimes unable to meet the moment.”

The top leaders of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania lost their jobs after appearing before the same committee last year. There has been no indication that Shafik, who took office last July, has lost the confidence of Columbia’s board.

On Thursday, a voice on a loudspeaker repeatedly told those in the encampment that “since you have refused to disperse, you will now be placed under arrest for trespassing.” The protesters responded with their own cry: “Columbia, Columbia, you will see — Palestine will be free!”

Police officers began taking protesters into custody and putting them on buses as other students chanted “Shame!” Officers later took down the tents as demonstrators gathered in front of Butler Library and called for amnesty for those who had been arrested.

Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, was one of several students from Barnard College — whose campus is across Broadway from Columbia’s — who were suspended for participating in the encampment at Columbia. Hirsi, 21, said on social media that she was an organizer with the student coalition that has been pushing the university to cut ties with companies that support Israel. She is also involved with the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, one of two student groups suspended in November for holding unauthorized protests.

METROPOLITAN diary