I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [132]
When I was a child, the ballet world hummed about his breakup with Vera Zorina, and soon after, broke into a chorus over his new star, Maria Tallchief. While married to Maria, it was evident he became drawn to the budding talent of Tanaquil LeClercq, then, over the next thirty years in overlapping sequence, Diana Adams, Allegra Kent, Gelsey Kirkland, Suzanne Farrell, Patricia McBride, Kay Mazzo, Karin von Aroldingen, and, in his final years, Kyra Nichols, Merrill Ashley, and the teenager Darci Kistler. He spoke of Darci’s potential to me, with regret that he wouldn’t be around to cultivate her. “Nobody should touch her—one could ruin what she has.”
As Michelangelo used his genius to release figures from a slab of marble, Balanchine recognized the potential in a ballerina, and sought to mold her and make ballets for her. We heard from his lips, throughout his life, “Ballet is woman.” He longed to be the sole sculptor, and resented his muse going off to study with other teachers or being influenced by other choreographers, and the ballerinas were uncomfortable having boyfriends or husbands hanging around the theater; it was unspoken, but understood. Balanchine didn’t want his favorites running off after performances to another man, husband, or child. No distraction. Only his ballets and him.
One ballerina from NYCB’s early days, the worldly Ruth Sobotka,1 rebelled. She didn’t worry about Balanchine’s sensitivities; she flaunted her boyfriends. “Ruth advised us about sex,” Carrie said, “ ‘the curse’ [monthly menstrual periods], and how to handle boyfriends. All the corps de ballet girls doted on her. She was rumored to have had the prince of Monaco as a beau [pre–Grace Kelly].” One man in particular she often stashed in the narrow wings at City Center to watch performances. Bearded, disheveled, in an ankle-length overcoat, he reminded us of a homeless bum. We dubbed him “El Stinko.” Balanchine didn’t like him, and would sniff, “Dirty man with beard!”—as usual, equating men with beards with the distasteful or pornographic, probably stemming from his hatred of Lenin. Eventually, Ruth up and left the world of dance to marry “El Stinko”—Stanley Kubrick.
It disturbed Balanchine, his muses having another man, and motherhood would affect the shape of their bodies and deflect attention from their art, and him. Balanchine’s genius fed on the image of the aloof, elusive woman. If she was married or already had children, he felt hobbled. He needed to believe and hope that he could attain the muse, and wooed her through his ballets. If he succeeded, they sometimes wed … and it never worked. At home, an ordinary woman was revealed and the spell broken. His creative engine languished, and he soon sought a replacement.
In his domain, he was without peer. But competing with another man in the bed department was a level field. Though he was supremely confident wooing his muse in classes, rehearsals, and through his choreography, in the actual dating and courtship rituals he needed a surrogate—and that surrogate was the male dancing partner. Over the years, I played that part with a variety of muses. Onstage, dancing the pas de deux, I was a stand-in for Balanchine. After performance, at supper, his foil.
A typical scene, from the early days with Tanny:
Balanchine: “Tanny, Jacques, maybe tonight after performance, we go out? What you think?”
At supper, afraid of being turned down or overstepping in direct seduction, he courted his goal with an end run, setting up an environment of courtship by using me. “Tonight, the pas de deux was marvelous, shimmering, more than ordinary. And you, Jacques, you partnered her”—with a sidelong glance to Tanny—“ah, she floated.” And then, still addressing me, he’d gesture to Tanny, “She was so beautiful, like angel. I