I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [165]
You could always tell where you stood with Lincoln by studying Nancy Lassalle’s behavior.6 A patron and groupie who dedicated her life to the company and, especially, the school, from its earliest days, she reflected what Lincoln projected. At this time, she was telegraphing Lincoln’s disfavor toward me, turning down the corners of her mouth and averting her eyes when she saw me.
He would wander around, come up to dancers, stare at them, saying nothing or, all of a sudden, yelling, “Get out!”
As Balanchine faded, Lincoln’s behavior rippled into a Jackson Pollock. One noon, dripping sweat after ballet class, I was gossiping with Carol Sumner7 in the hall. Lincoln appeared. Spotting us, he pressed himself against the wall and, like a crab, sidled past as if afraid our bodies might touch. I ventured a nervous, “Hi, Lincoln. You got a moment?” He squeaked out a high-pitched “Yeeeessss!,” then, accelerating his crabwalk, slipped through the hall door, and out of sight. “Oh, well. Lincoln’s not lucid,” I said to an open-mouthed Carol.
Lincoln Kirstein accosting Suzanne Farrell (image credit 17.1)
That same night, in the dressing room I shared with the elegant Icelandic star Helgi Tomasson, I sat alone, putting on my makeup. The first ballet, Swan Lake, had just ended, and I was still haunted by Tchaikovsky’s angst-ridden chords. In the adjacent dressing room, Peter Martins was frantically changing out of his Prince costume to prepare for the next ballet, when Lincoln burst into his dressing room. You could hear everything through the doors. “Peter, you’re THE ONE,” he bellowed. “You have to watch everything George does! There’s no time to waste! Watch all the ballets, over and over. Sit in the balcony, sit on the sides! Watch from the orchestra! Sit in the front row. Analyze it all! Everything onstage! The patterns. The entrances. The exits. Find out how George does it!”
The warning bells were ringing for places onstage. “Sorry, Lincoln, I’m in the next ballet. I have to go!” Peter dashed off. There was no sound of Lincoln exiting, only silence. He didn’t shuffle his feet, he didn’t move. I didn’t move. Was he sitting? Was he standing? It seemed forever. Finally, the sounds of sighs and grunts, then Lincoln exiting the dressing room and going down the hall.
Several minutes later, having donned my woolies, I headed downstairs to warm up, and, on opening the door to the stairwell, froze. A white-faced Joe Duell stood on the landing, pinned with his back to the wall by the looming body of Lincoln. Directly over Joe’s head, attached to the wall, was a red fire extinguisher in a glass case, and next to it, a heavy red fire ax hung in brackets. “You’re THE ONE, Joe!” Lincoln insisted. “I don’t trust Peter. Can I count on you?”
I backed out, eased the door shut, took the elevator to the stage, and, in a corner in the wings, managed a warm-up. In an hour, it would be my turn to go onstage for the ballet Who Cares?
As Balanchine was dying, our artistic body seemed eviscerated, bereft of vital organs. His company classes started our days. Without him, we were disconsolate children, coming in for breakfast with no one in the kitchen. Orphans with an unknown future.
Despite the leadership vacuum, the company was dancing beautifully, presenting a positive facade. But with the curtain’s descent, dark shadows enveloped. Little groups with glum faces whispered in corners, and no one seemed able to meet another’s gaze, and storming about was the terrified and terrifying Lincoln.
Believing that he may have to be prepared to run the company, poor Joe Duell came to me supplicating: “Jacques, when Mr. Balanchine does tendu battements, does he … ?,” imploring. Or, “You think we could meet in the morning and have a cup of coffee, so we could talk about Balanchine?” My son Chris told me Joe would call him too, asking