Farrell was one of the first Ford Foundation regional scholarship recipients at the School of American Ballet when the program was initiated in 1960. Her subsequent twenty-one years of service with the New York City Ballet has provided not only perhaps the most fertile and important dance career of the century but an eloquent statement about a subject never far from Balanchine's thoughts -- the interaction of art and money.

On June 28, 1960, less than two months before Farrell auditioned for Balanchine at SAB, he wrote to Nelson Rockefeller, then governor of New York, his thoughts about the "revival and development of the creative and performing arts...Now is the time to engage the support of that section of the public which is interested in spiritual rather than material development -- the artists and patrons of the arts...Actually [the people] need something for the soul as well as the body in order not to wilt...We are famous as an industrial country. Why can't we also become famous as the nation that gives its children the greatest cultural advantages?" Balanchine went on to list nine specific activities that would further the cause of classical dance in the United States, all of which have since been implemented with astonishing success, as the gigantic growth of participation and interest in the art testifies. Farrell's career both spans this so-called dance boom and is entirely a product of it. In her silent movement she is the quintessential spokesman for her profession.

The talent, discipline and artistic direction that the campaign Balanchine suggested required were readily available, but the millions of dollars were not. They were however found. This intimate relationship of the sacred and profane is a subject that makes those mesmerized by the poetic angle of artistic endeavor nervous. But in the real world, the performing arts are completely dependent on money. When Stravinsky asked only two questions -- how long should it be and how much do I get -- about a commissioned piece of music, he unveiled the truth about the requirements of his service.

For Balanchine to assemble a ballet he needed, beyond his inner concept, costly tools: a theater, a stage crew, lighting, costumes, an orchestra, a conductor and, most indispensable, dancers, who were, as he loved to say, available only on union time. By definition, classical dancers are trained from childhood by teachers who were so trained themselves. Balanchine needed the School of American ballet to provide these dancers, and the School needed to locate and encourage young malleable bodies. A Balanchine ballet's realization began with the eight-year-olds standing at the barre in Studio 1 on wobbly, eager little legs. This rule defines the classical dance tradition.

It is not wild speculation to assume that without the enthusiasm and conviction of W. McNeil Lowry, director of the Ford Foundation's Humanities and the Arts program initiated in the late 1950's, Farrell and Balanchine would not have found each other and their lucid, intense and prolific collaboration would not have happened. But because Diana Adams, as a scout for the Ford program, went to Cincinnati and auditioned a fourteen-year-old Roberta Sue Ficker and subsequently recommended her to Balanchine, they did meet, soul-mates of a sort. Their work has redefined classical ballet in this century. Farrell epitomizes the modern woman, endowed with both unearthly feminine beauty and an awesome, bold independence. The ballets he choreographed for her were Balanchine's most profoundly spiritual, as if he had finally found the territory where the Muse resides. Farrell symbolizes, for those touched by her, a return to religion in the most joyous and immediate fashion.

Farrell was not born into an artistic aristocracy, but she has come to define one, a particularly American kind of success story. Her example is a crystallized tribute to artistic patronage. Without such continuous aid, she would have had no School of American Ballet, and no New York City Ballet, no stage fit for her to move upon, no costumes fit to frame her proud silhouette, no lights bright enough to illuminate her radiance, and few witnesses to her integrity, her eccentricity or her voluminous wit. Her career gilds those many millions of dollars in angel dust; her patrons have become Medicean ennablers in search and celebration of the divine intimations of the human form. The notion of money as an end in itself is renegotiated when it is quietly and selflessly put in service for artists like Farrell. Thus the ladder of service is extended and continued.

Farrell's career is not inwardly directed; it is a glorious presentation of the work and caring of thousands. Her inimitable demonstrations of faith as flesh is a composite, choreographed and very deliberate account of the intentions of all concerned. Her genius was given to her, but she assumed the responsibility for molding it into a viable and often shatteringly real event. It is generosity in three dimensions.

Even Farrell's immobile presence on the stage contains extraordinary vibrations; a haunting and yet peaceful stillness. Her spontaneity in performance has set a new standard of sheer excitement; even her partners cannot anticipate her extravagances. Her craft and her fearlessness are unconcealed, and yet they remain mysterious, even to those in her profession. One sees what she does and feels it more but her sources are indecipherable, parodoxical. Is it technique or illusion, impulsive or calculated, beautiful or bizarre? Sometimes it is the brashness of a showgirl, sometimes the imperiousness of a queen, sometimes the true grit of a civil servant. Often it is the sweetness of a saint.

What Farrell teaches is something less apparent than technique though of an incomparable power. Her performances, night after night, are rigorous displays of moral depth made visible. She has irrevocably changed the lives of her peers, her audiences and George Balanchine. Farrell says that God, "gave me the gift of dancing." Others gave her the gift of a stage. That she chose to return these gifts to us, sublimely shaped, completes a cycle of salvation.

There are times on the stage when the whole paradox of her achievement is concentrated in a single gesture, a flash of the eyes, a smile. William Blake knew Farrell's smile well:

There is a Smile of Love
There is a Smile of Deceit
And there is a Smile of Smiles
In which these two Smiles meet.

In Farrell endless contradictions are resolved, transfigured, transcended. She is the definitive heroine of our time.