I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [198]
Ellen had been a student of mine when I was dean of dance at SUNY Purchase and then went off for a career as a dancer. Several years later, she popped up in New York. “I’d like to try teaching a little bit. Do you think I could?” Then, a little bit later, “I’ll teach, but I won’t choreograph. I don’t know how.” Then came, “I’ll choreograph, but I won’t direct. I don’t know how.” Then, “Okay, I’ll direct, but I’ll need help.” Every step Ellen took, she overwhelmed her doubts, and today she guides NDI into its future.
The program started in New Mexico I passed on to Catherine Oppenheimer. Catherine had been at SAB with my twins, and had gone on to perform with NYCB. After Balanchine’s death, she danced with the Twyla Tharp company, left and joined NDI. In New Mexico she has made a superb NDI model and a huge success. One of our earliest and most loyal board members, Val Diker, funded and guided that New Mexico program until it was stable and healthy.
Lori Klinger was responsible for seeding a program in Ohio, and in Richmond, Virginia, called Minds in Motion. Lori is artistic director for Rosie O’Donnell’s musical theater program, Rosie’s Broadway Kids. And there is Tracy Straus, a teacher-choreographer of sunlit ability; she brings joy with dance like a female Johnny Appleseed, birthing NDI babies wherever she goes. From coast to coast, there are NDI programs.
Ballet rarely interests me now. No more can I make love—through coaching, partnering, dancing with and sharing the stage—with those beautiful ballerinas and artists that grace the ballet. When I’m in the audience and I see a ballerina of such incandescence, I yearn to dance with her, to touch and lift, to manipulate and feel the heft of her, and the magic of her movement. Impossible now, for this older guy with bad feet and knee replacements, daydreaming in the audience of rolling the Russian star Diana Vishneva in my arms!
Dénouement
In 1989, I wrote an article for Parade magazine, the insert used in Sunday papers nationwide. In it, I spoke of how Madame Seda put my hand on the ballet barre and conjured a love of dance, then passed me on to Balanchine. She didn’t have any boys in class, and my sister really was superior to the other girls. Seda gave us up and sent us to the School of American Ballet. It was her expression of love, not so much to us, but to dance.
A few months after the article was published, I received a letter from Madame Seda. I had not seen or been in touch with her for decades. She was in her mid-eighties and had been retired for several years.
Dear Jacques,
Ex-pupils of mine from all over the country have been sending me copies of your Parade article. Your words made me so excited about teaching that I’m thinking of going back and starting again. Thank you, dear Jacques, for writing so well of me, I who did so little for you.
Her letter touched my heart. I saved it, planning to visit her.
In New York City, I cram more into my schedule in one day than I do in a week anywhere else. I dash frantically from one appointment to another. I put off the impulse to visit Madame Seda. Shelved, it lapsed.
One morning, months later, Seda suddenly popped into my head and kept repopping. I wondered, “Has she started teaching again? I should call her.” The next morning, Seda again, “Oh, I forgot to call you, Seda. I bet you’re teaching class right now, and in your blood-red skirt. Tomorrow,” I told myself, “I’ll reschedule everything, I’ll go out and visit her.” This went on for a week. Then one morning, I couldn’t stand her repoppings; so I headed for the car, following a road map, to her home in Stony Brook, New York.
Her driveway was full of parked cars. It was an ordinary suburban house, but all the doors were open. Outside the house, balloons and banners attached to trees swayed in the breeze and music waltzed out the windows. “Ah, there’s a party,” I thought. “I’m glad I came.” It wasn’t, and it was. She had died, and it was her wake.
Jacques d’Amboise’s monthly calendar. An example