MOSCOW -- George Balanchine was an exile thrice. The first time came without his consent and even without his prior knowledge, as his family went from its native Georgia in the Caucasus to the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, before he was born.

The second time was when he left Communist Russia as a young ballet dancer. He was fully aware of the consequences: The regime would never pardon him and he would have to struggle for survival on alien terrain, as did millions of other refugees from the Marxist paradise.

The third migration happened nearly a decade later, in 1933, when the promising 29-year-old choreographer crossed the Atlantic to try his luck in the United States.

All three relocations proved crucial for Balanchine. The one to St. Petersburg provided the opportunity to get excellent training at the Imperial Ballet School; the move to Europe saved him from the Gulag; and the move to America enabled him to become the greatest choreographer of the 20th century (praise given by Encyclopedia Britannica, with which many ballet buffs would agree).

The year 2004 marks Balanchine's centenary. Celebrated worldwide, the event holds special meaning in his last and definitive hometown, New York. Only in America did Balanchine become the choreographer that changed the way people thought about ballet.

Gone were fancy sets and gem-studded costumes. Silly fairy-tale plots were replaced by laconic lines of pure dance, the dance itself turned remarkably precise and complicated. While a romantic principal dancer might get away with a reckless pirouette, a Balanchine dancer was expected to perform an intricate pattern of micro moves, aspiring to establish magical harmony -- not a star's dominance -- in the theater.

That was Balanchine's revolution, labeled neoclassicism later on. Although the maestro kept a number of ballets conspicuously old-fashioned, like "Harlequinade" or "Prodigal Son," as a tribute to his great predecessors, Maurius Petipa, Mikhail Fokin and Vazlav Nijinsky, he firmly established his own vision in the world of dance.

Today, every company that wants to stage a Balanchine ballet must acquire permission from the Balanchine Trust by certifying that the production will be executed in accordance with the Balanchine Style and Balanchine Technique Service Standards established and provided by The Trust.

In the eyes of American law, Balanchine was just an immigrant, like tens of millions of others, yet he refused to conform and mimic as an immigrant is supposed to. Instead, he revolutionized his adopted environment. His example looks pretty much unique. A number of other refugees from Russia successfully acquired celebrity status in the United States, such as writer Vladimir Nabokov and dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Unlike Balanchine, they aspired to fit in -- and to keep the umbilical cord tying them to Russian culture.

Nabokov's "Lolita" was hardly revolutionary despite its shocking subject. A careful reader of Nabokov's best seller discovers numerous references to the golden age of Russian novels, including obsessive descriptions of teenage eroticism from the works of the dark Magus of Russian letters, Fedor Dostoyevsky.

Nureyev might have been a ballet genius, but one within the limits of his school, the traditional Kirov ballet. Balanchine's flat refusal to engage him in New York hurt the vain Nureyev immensely. The two sort of reconciled on Balanchine's deathbed by default: Balanchine couldn't speak English anymore and needed a Russian-speaking artistic confidant.

Another illustrious Russian exile, Igor Stravinsky, performed a revolution in music years before he came to the U.S. Perhaps the only other Russian equally stimulated by exile in America was an engineer, Igor Sikorsky, who built a new flying species, the helicopter, in Connecticut.

So 2004 is the Balanchine year. His company, New York City Ballet, is working hard to make this season memorable, having opened it with a delightful Balanchine festival in Lincoln Center in January. On Jan. 22, Balanchine's birthday, the company toasted its founder together with the audience, after having thoughtfully supplied each person in the theater with a little bottle of Jewel of Russia Authentic Russian Vodka (made in Russia, imported by BMC Imports, New Canaan, Connecticut).

Not only the director of the New York City Ballet, Peter Martins, but other disciples of Balanchine, such as Edward Villella (founding artistic director of the Miami City Ballet), have placed Mr. B in the center of their 2004 agenda. The Balanchine boom has supplied viewers with the widest-ever selection of Balanchine ballets, including "Apollo," "Prodigal Son," "Harlequinade," "Stravinsky Violin Concerto," "Ballo della Regina" and, of course, the ultimate masterpiece "Jewels," with its three story-less yet remarkably distinct parts ("Emeralds," "Rubies" and "Diamonds").

"Jewels" juxtaposed music by Faure, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky; three color schemes -- elfish-green, tea-rose red and sparkling Cartier white -- and three different moods -- fleeting weightless joy, exuberant passion and impeccable majestic dignity.

For Russia, Balanchine's centenary arrives as a challenge for two reasons: (1) He spent almost his whole life elsewhere and is widely known as an American choreographer, and (2) Russian dancers can't dance Balanchine. Their technique is still 19th-century Petipa -- performance overridden with drama. Their ambition is to tell a story or build up a character, while a Balanchine dancer is detached, precise and almost impersonal -- if not in "Harlequinade," then in "Jewels" for sure.

New York City Ballet is one of the few ballets in the world that practically never employs dancers from Kirov or Bolshoy. They are always welcome just next door in American Ballet Theater, which is infinitely closer to the traditional story-oriented dance.

Even in the ultimate severance of ties with the homeland, Mr. B chose to be special. For the majority of exile artists, such a divorce is normally shaped by politics, but Balanchine's case, it was made irrevocable by his idiosyncratic style.