I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [168]
The only other time I saw Balanchine vulnerable was in his servile devotion to Suzanne. It was unnerving to witness Balanchine lose his equilibrium, but it humanized him, and made him more lovable, more like us.
“Mr. B, he needs someone with him twenty-four hours a day,” Karin told me on November 2, 1982. “He fell and broke ribs, several, and has a hairline fracture in his wrist. He is going into Roosevelt Hospital.” When I heard that, I became numb. God! It’s happening.
Ronnie Bates ventured, “Our boss looks like he’s out of it, so the two of us have to work to hold all the good together, because there is some lousy stuff going on.” Ronnie never told me exactly what he meant by “all the good” and “lousy stuff.” I assumed he meant Balanchine’s legacy, and what would replace it. Feeling isolated, the dancers were closing in on themselves. We were emotional wrecks. Cliques were forming. Whispering groups collected in clusters that would break apart if another dancer walked by. Shaun O’Brien and Frank Moncion joked, “Everyone at SAB will have to learn to speak Danish as a compulsory language to be eligible to join the company!” A virus was loose. Its symptoms—gloom, avoiding eye contact, staring at the floor. Our pervasive furtiveness seemed to lower the wattage of the light bulbs. I was no better, separating myself from everyone, not even confessing to Carrie the depth of my congested spirit. My shaft of light was NDI, spending time with a thousand children who had never heard of Balanchine or NYCB.
At breakfast one morning, Chris challenged me. “Do you want to run this company? Because if you do, you’d better start fighting for it. You’re going to have a battle.” I thought, “Dear protective Chris, worried about his papa’s position and image.” I answered, “Chris, dear, the last thing in the world I would want is to open the door to Balanchine’s office and call it my own.”
Many years later, Peter Martins, who was doing his best to run the company, told me that Suzanne Farrell had demanded that she share with him the artistic direction of the company. He could continue to run the operations, but she would be in charge of Balanchine’s repertoire, and Balanchine’s office would be hers. They split. Suzanne left the company and eventually formed her own group, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, based in Washington, D.C., and inspires the dancers in her group by the model she projects.
Despite the lack of hope in NYCB as Balanchine declined, I continued to try to enlist the help of every doctor I knew, trying to diagnose what was wrong with Balanchine. On my visits to him at Roosevelt Hospital, he would speak to me in a mixture of Russian and English, as he oscillated from good days to dreadful ones.
On November 14, he was delightful—he looked good and sounded fine. Proudly, he claimed, “I have four,” gesturing to his broken ribs. Lying on the bed in a blue hospital gown and viewing the TV with a young Hispanic nurse next to him, he explained, “Better this morning! The dizziness still, when standing and walking, and a little sometimes when sitting, too. But my ears hear sound underwater.” We talked more than an hour. Topics ran the gamut, from advice on choreography to the importance of a costume designer. “You must choreograph, explore new ways to move. Experiment, experiment, then throw away. Everyone must be dressed beautifully. You must find your Karinska.” (I mentioned China Machado—the legendary model—and her exquisite taste, knowledge of clothes, and expertise as couturiere. Mr. B seemed to like the idea … perhaps it was my description of her beauty.) The conversation went to Petipa vs. Bournonville. I said, “You mean you don’t like Bournonville?” “No, I like … it’s just I think he’s a step backward from Petipa.” Again, he brought up his script he had given me many months before, his preface to Nutcracker. Inspired by the