I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [32]
I was a rambunctious brat backstage, bringing my street play to the corridors and dressing rooms of the theater. Misha Arshansky, who specialized in character roles with dramatic makeup, wigs, and assorted paraphernalia, was assigned to teach me how to put on makeup. His guttural voice was thick with a Russian accent, difficult to understand. Slamming me into a chair, he commanded, “Sit! No move. No talk. Eyes still, no blink.” As he worked his magic on my face, he prepared me with more than makeup. “You are no more American boy, running wild with bad manners. You must act grown up, and become a dancer, an artiste. Besides, you are starring in the role of an angel. Be one.” It took a while to absorb his advice.
The Ballet Society programs made for a rich menu. There were modern dances (Iris Mayberry running around with her signature scarves) and Javanese performers (mysterious artists who kept to themselves, behaving like samurais onstage and off—they danced to the sound of their long-nailed fingers tap dancing on thin wooden boards held in the crook of an elbow, and seemed to move in another place and time). On the Pastorela program—Renard and Divertimento. I would sit out front after Pastorela. In Renard, I adored the undulating tail of the Fox’s costume, and the way Todd played with that tail as if it were another limb, at times kissing it fondly on its tip. Todd’s performance as the Fox was full of tongue-in-cheek humor and pepper-spiced. The dancing in Divertimento and jazzy rhythms of the music had me bouncing in my seat. Lew vigorously pounded out the rhythms of his variation, precise but stiffly. Another dancer, whose variation complemented Lew’s, was John Taras. John’s variation was soft, smooth, a marshmallow dancing.5 But what brought me to rapture in Divertimento was the pas de deux with Maria Tallchief and Francisco Moncion, with its culmination of an inventive embrace. Frank’s outstretched arms, reaching past Maria’s shoulders, his hands clenching into fists, then repeatedly stretching his fingers yearningly, as he rocks in slow motion. Simultaneously, Maria, balancing on the tip of her left foot, tucks her head into the crook of Frank’s neck, nuzzling. Then she gently strums the floor with her right foot, making a series of circles as if visualizing the musical phrase by stirring the air. I’d go home and practice every variation, and dream that someday, I would dance with Maria.
FAREL
Farel was a bully, and everyone was scared of him. No one ever called him anything except Farel. He wasn’t big or strong. He seemed old, his body hunched into pleats like a cold shrimp. Yellow fingers cupping a cigarette, he clamped furtively on the butt, swallowing his own lips and wrapping them around jaundiced teeth. He’d suck in, an arpeggio, then his arm would drop down and from the corner of his mouth, he’d vent a stream of smoke in a descending octave. As dependable as Old Faithful, the arm would pump up to repeat the cycle, the oil-rig piston of a tough guy. And I’m talking about a boy barely a teenager. He puffed, bobbed, and swayed constantly. We all felt his watery eyes staring at us. He may have been the author of “Don’t cross Amsterdam Avenue; if you do, they’ll get you,” and “If they come around our block, we’ll get them.”
Silence with the occasional mumbled word was part of Farel’s mystique. He used his grunts, mumbles,