I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [201]
CHARLOTTE AND A CHORUS LINE
I became a groupie to my daughter. The symptoms started when she did the national tour of Cats. I followed her to several cities. In Jerome Robbins’s Broadway, I saw her starring as Peter Pan and as Anita in West Side Story at least a dozen times. Subsequently, there came a succession of roles on Broadway—Song and Dance; Lola in Damn Yankees; followed by a quartet of “C’s”—Company, Chicago, Contact, and A Chorus Line. I kept count of the number of times I watched her as Roxie Hart in Chicago: one hundred sixty. The cast would spot my white hair in the audience, and one would quip, “Guess who’s out front again?” And the chorus would answer, “Charlotte’s dad—who else?” There was a short but dramatic stint starring in Sweet Charity, when the designated star, Christina Applegate, broke her ankle and Charlotte saved the day, stepping in to do the show in Boston and the previews on Broadway.
Decades ago, I had seen the musical A Chorus Line. The plot revolves around an audition. It didn’t grab me, perhaps because I’d never had to audition for anything. Now, having seen the revival, I find that every moment in that show speaks directly to the heart of the dancer. And to me, particularly when the character Paul recounts how he overheard his father say to the company director, “Take care of my son,” and Paul confesses, “I never heard him say those words to me, ‘my son.’ ” The scene wets my eyes. Pop never used the word “son” or “my son” to me or, as far as I remember, to either of my brothers. The Boss, of course, made up for it effusively, to me and everyone else—“My son, Jacques, my son Jacques …,” “Mon petit coco,” “Mon chouchou,” “Mon petit carrot.” All vegetables!
Paul gets injured later in the show. He screams and clutches his knee, falls to the ground, and time suspends. Then, as most of the dancers run to him and cluster, a few back away, the implications too painful. “Is it broken?” Suggestions ring out, “No, it’s his cartilage! Don’t move your leg! No, he should try to straighten it!” With someone already calling a doctor, Paul tries to cover up the pain, wincing as he is carefully picked up and carried off to the emergency room.
Riveting truths are in that scene. First, “Where’s his dance bag? Get his dance bag! Don’t forget his dance bag.” The dancer with a dance bag. I haven’t performed in over twenty-six years, and I still carry my dance bag every day, even to black-tie affairs. When Paul’s dance bag is gone, so is he.
Another moment of truth is the scene after Paul is carried out. The dancers wander, shuffling, feeling alone. Unable to make eye contact, retreating inside themselves. Until the character Zach, the director, breaks the silence. “All right, that’s it, let’s continue. Places. Come on, we’re going on.” Paul is erased from the land of the living. He can’t dance anymore. Who is he? We know who we are: we’re dancers. Unyielding dedication, discipline, and pain is the crucible that transforms a person who dances into a dancer.
That’s why I told Balanchine from the hospital bed after my first knee operation, “Of course I’m ready. Schedule me!” Six weeks before the doctor told me I could start dancing again, I was on that stage performing the final movement of the ballet Brahms-Schoenberg. OH GOD, was it exhilarating! A sort of pseudo-Hungarian ballet/folk dance Balanchine had choreographed for Suzanne Farrell and me. I wore soft, knee-high boots, and it wasn’t until I was going up the stairs to my dressing room after the curtain calls that I noticed a squishy sound—my right boot was ankle deep in blood. During the performance all the stitches had ripped open.
I believe it’s the same on the playing field, the tennis court, the baseball diamond, the track, or the gymnastic balance beam—the whole world is the now. The past recedes; everything is in the present. The space you inhabit and the art you’re engaged in is all there is. That’s what it