I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [37]
Great male dancers from all over the world made the school their home. André Eglevsky, Igor Youskevitch, Lew Christensen, and William Dollar competed in class. I copied everything they did. If Eglevsky did ten pirouettes, I tried to do ten. When Youskevitch impressed with effortless double tours, I would slip into the “little studio” and spend hours trying to capture that ease and simplicity.
At SAB and as a member at NYCB, I was blessed with extraordinary teachers and models. Anatole Oboukhoff, a premier danseur of the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, always wore freshly pressed black pants, white socks, and black character shoes with no heel. He smelled of cologne, and his slender torso was caressed by a white, romantic, blousy long-sleeved shirt, open at the neck. In his breast pocket, he kept a handkerchief and a roll of peppermint Life Savers. Oboukhoff’s face looked like a frowning prune with keen, dark brown eyes burning above the thin line of a determined mouth. Class began precisely on time. Outside the studio door, Oboukhoff would alert us to his entrance by clearing his throat in a series of grunts, as a lion coughs and growls in the jungle. He would then enter and, with a pistol-shot clap of his hands, launch us into the most exacting hour and a half. Like clockwork, we spent thirty minutes at the barres that lined the studio walls, practicing fundamentals by the hundreds, nonstop, without rest. No air conditioning in those days. On hot, muggy days, I would have to change my place halfway through the barre, because I was standing in a puddle of my own sweat. This portion of the class left our legs shaking, before we staggered to the center of the room for Oboukhoff’s “Invention of the Day.” Fifteen to twenty minutes long, its architecture formed a trilogy that challenged memory as well as body. Part One consisted of multiple repetitions of varied dance steps, basics, which segued into Part Two—slow, controlled adagio movement sequences and balances. Part Three, his coup de grâce, layered, endless combinations of vigorous leaps, moving forward and backward in space, then side to side, repeated over and over again. The trilogy abruptly terminated with a balance, holding still, posed. Dripping with sweat, pale and panting, we were afraid to look at Oboukhoff, fearing what was coming next: “LLLLLeffffft!” and we had to repeat the entire trilogy, only starting on the left side. In decades of classes I took with Oboukhoff, every single Invention of the Day was original; he never repeated himself.
Anatole Oboukhoff teaching class at SAB Broadway studios, ca. 1951 (image credit 3.9)
During class, Oboukhoff made strange, rhythmical sounds, chugging with his voice, and finger snapping in accompaniment to the dancers. He never spoke without starting the sound of the first word somewhere in the distance, crescendoing into explosive t’s and vowels. First, he would cover his mouth with his handkerchief. Muffled by the handkerchief, he would start a throaty sound, and then, he would drop the handkerchief from his mouth like a curtain, and a word would erupt. “Mmmmm-ORE!” or “Nnnnnynynyny-ET!” or “Tttttttterrrrrri-bbbbbbbULL!” I recall once trembling in a balance on one leg, trying to hold steady in a slow promenade, my arms and legs stretched out and cramping. Oboukhoff strolled over, put his thumb and index finger right between my eyes, and snapped his fingers, trying to throw me off balance. I knew that if I fell, he would snort, “MmmmmmmeeeeessssTA JACQUES! WwwwhaaaaTYou DO! (grrrrrr)!” If, however, I succeeded in holding my balance through the multiple finger snaps, Oboukhoff would reach out, take my hand, and place, in my palm, a single candy Life Saver. Sometimes the pianist would overlay, on whatever musical composition he or she was playing, a little tinkly rendition of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? …”
To end the class, Oboukhoff would give