I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [157]
In all the years I’d been with NYCB, I had taken leaves of absence to indulge my whims, and later, when I had a family, to make money. I never asked permission, just announced that I would be unavailable at NYCB. I’d done three major Hollywood movies and two Broadway shows (performed in one and choreographed the other), and had been a visiting professor for a decade at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, between NYCB seasons or on days off, I’d assembled trios and chamber groups of the most talented ballerinas to perform with me in concerts and dance demonstrations all over the U.S.15 During the holiday season, I would perform the opening night of Nutcracker with whoever was Mr. B’s favorite ballerina, then take a couple of weeks off to go down and dance with the Ballet de San Juan in Puerto Rico. One year, I took a few months off and toured Europe headlining Ballet West, and then another year, with the North Carolina School of the Arts. Then, when I felt like it, I performed as guest artist with various ballet companies—among them, Joffrey, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the ballet companies in Vancouver, Munich, and Hamburg—never asking permission. One summer I left the company to go direct and choreograph the musical Roberta for summer stock, then again the next summer to stage Lady in the Dark, and the third year my own production of Peter Pan that toured several cities. It was a test to see if I wanted to go into directing. I didn’t—the ballet and Balanchine were my center. But I never told Lincoln or Balanchine that. I just went off and did what I wanted. No wonder Lincoln thought I was a traitor, though I know Balanchine didn’t. Still, I don’t doubt they felt my interest in NYCB was lacking a hundred percent commitment.
A quartet of choreographers: With Jerome Robbins, John Taras, and Balanchine, celebrating the end of the Ravel Festival, May 1975 (image credit 15.1)
Suddenly, Lincoln’s avalanche of words slowed. “Whatever errors I did in the past to you and whatever you have done to me by virtue of lack of communicating, it is over, done with, forgotten.” Lincoln patted me on the back. “I love you and always have.” He spun around, dashed down the nearby stairwell, and left me trembling and wondering if, despite all his distortions, the claim, “This is what George wants!” was true.
Betty Cage told me she had once demanded of Balanchine, “Why do you let Jacques run off and do anything he wants?” and he replied, “Nobody can tell him what to do. He’s just like me.” He didn’t realize his words echoed both Carrie and my mother (the “Nobody can tell him what to do” part).
If they were expecting me to step into more of a leadership role in the company, I was a wild horse. Taking off without thinking of consequences, thoughtless as to who might be affected by my actions, I never considered that Lincoln or Balanchine might feel I was throwing the offer back in their faces.
National Dance Institute would occupy more and more of my time and imagination in ensuing years. Today, NDI is the center of my life, and with affiliate programs all over the U.S. and abroad, we have reached over two million children.
That was over some thirty years ago. Recently, Sue Newhouse mumbled to me guiltily that she’d have to miss the next board meeting. I, who try to miss them every chance I get, loudly exclaimed, “Gee, Sue, I don’t believe it! This is the first board meeting you’ve ever missed!” “No,” she confessed, “there was one other you didn’t know about.” Her loyalty is infinite.
By 1979, I had added to my plate the position as full professor and dean of dance at SUNY Purchase, New York, and managed to function in three full-time jobs—for NYCB, rehearsing, choreographing, and performing; for NDI, teaching and choreographing for several hundred children each week in the public schools; and for SUNY Purchase, supervising the students and faculty, and choreographing works for the entire dance department. Sleeping on my desk, dressing-room floors, and