I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [158]
My resistance to Lincoln directing my future went deeper than maverick stubbornness. That 1974 conversation after the premiere of Jerry’s Dybbuk was intense, but it wasn’t the first time Lincoln had told me he expected me to run the company.
My reaction to Lincoln or anyone suggesting that I would be running NYCB had always been, “No, don’t say that. I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future. Right now, I’m going to dance, and I’ll do that, until I can’t dance anymore. Or until there’s no more joy in it, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do.” I’d continue, “I’m not going to wait around for my father to die to see if I inherit the farm, especially when I don’t know if I want to be a farmer. Besides, Balanchine’s shoes are too big, no one can stand in them!”
David Richardson following me across the room (image credit 15.2)
Not long after that conversation in 1974, Lincoln stormed as usual into company class. Dressed in his perennial navy blue suit with slightly scuffed black shoes, he went straight to the front of class and, without even a nod to Balanchine, sat on a bench in front of the mirror. An aura of intense concentration and danger emanated. Balanchine glanced at him once and never looked again.
The dancers were in the center of the ballet studio, executing dance combinations Balanchine was inventing. Some ten minutes passed, with Lincoln, immobile, staring straight ahead while we danced all over the room. Suddenly, he reached down, untied his shoelaces, took off his shoes, and lined them neatly, side by side, in front of his feet; then he sat, leaned back, and, in his black nylon ankle socks, resumed staring for another ten minutes. We dancers were a symphony of leaves fluttering around, trying desperately not to gaze at the shoes, and definitely not looking at Lincoln, a solid black rock, vibrating madness. Balanchine just kept teaching, testing us with his combinations. After an eternity, Lincoln stood up and stalked out in his black socks, leaving the shoes behind.
Lincoln Kirstein, right before he took his shoes off (image credit 15.3)
Balanchine loved teaching class. It was his turf, and there, he molded and tested his dancers, and found potential muses. I tried never to miss a Balanchine class, even toe classes for the ballerinas. He would invent steps on the spot, showing precisely how the feet moved to the structure of the music: “I have to take dancer and show them how I want them to move.” Other choreographic details, he often left vague (the use of arms and torso, for example), and he rarely staged how you entered or exited. We became his instruments, but, contrary to all the media baloney then and now, we were not mindless, slavish, or without personality.
Frustrated that people didn’t understand the techniques he had developed, he would inform us, “I am convinced that if you do these exercises this way, you will achieve strength, speed, precision, and control of time—you will have the facility to dance. Whether anyone wants to watch you dance, that’s something else.” He continued, “Choreography, for me, is teaching, but on a higher level. Some dancers have extra something, God gives. You cannot teach this. People say, ‘Balanchine doesn’t know how to teach soul.’ I answer them, ‘How can you teach soul?’ What is soul? Emotions? I can’t teach emotions. Just do the steps to music. If you do that, you’ve already achieved success. Who is doing the steps makes the difference. Allegra doing this step is so much more interesting than somebody else. Both do the same step, both interesting to look at. But, Allegra—you can’t take eyes off her.”
Why? Balanchine used to say, “God does this.” He said the same about Suzanne. Balanchine had a gift for recognizing those “God does this” qualities in certain dancers. That’s why he said, “No one should touch Darci [Kistler]. Don’t try to correct her. Leave her alone. Trying to teach her, one could ruin what she has.”
I became so attuned to him, I’d anticipate what he would be inventing in the next