I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [38]
The lines at the water fountain after! I don’t know a dancer today who could make it through an Oboukhoff class. My sister adored him. She named her cat Anatole in his honor.
Years later, I asked Balanchine, “Tell me about Oboukhoff. What was he like in Russia?” “Oboukhoff was big star at Maryinsky Theatre, Petersburg,” Balanchine informed. “He was famous for role of Prince in Swan Lake. Always dressed elegantly, you know, material, with velvet capes, embroidery that hung from shoulder to heels. Such a big star, people followed him, like prince with servants.” Said Balanchine, “I was student, young, teenager, sitting in hallway of school, unhappy. We had these tests, academics, you know. I was not very good, mathematics, and knew I had failed. Oboukhoff came down hall, with entourage, stopped, stared at me, and said, ‘Diga diga dyuhdyuh-you you papapass?’ I shook head, ‘No.’ He answered, ‘Geh geh geh G-IDIOT!’ and stalked away. You see, Oboukhoff had ‘diga diga diga’ talk! He stuttered!”
Partnering Gloria Govrin in Oboukhoff’s adagio class, ca. 1955 (image credit 3.10)
Suddenly, Oboukhoff’s eccentricities made sense to me. The mouth-covering handkerchief and all the histrionics and growling, frowning behavior were props to disguise a speech impediment and ward off his fear of communication. His Life Savers.
In adagio class, Oboukhoff taught me how to partner a ballerina, dance with and hold her. I learned all the classic pas de deux from him—Swan Lake, Bluebird, Les Sylphides, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker. Many years later, shortly after our son George was born, his mother, Carrie, brought the baby to SAB. She was so proud of him. Seeing Oboukhoff, Carrie went up to him, handed him the baby, and said in her sweet voice, “Here’s George, your next pupil.” Clutching the baby, Oboukhoff started to tremble. Bewildered and with pleading eyes, he passed George back to Carrie. This gruff man had never held an infant.
Feeling bold, I once approached him, “Mr. Oboukhoff, what do you do when you’re not teaching—weekends, or on vacation?” The startled man twisted his mouth into a grimace, puffed up his cheeks, and pushed out the sound. “FFFFFiiiish!” Fishing is a quiet, solitary sport. No need to talk.
And then there was Pierre Vladimiroff (Nijinsky’s successor as premier danseur of the Maryinsky and rumored to be the last partner of Anna Pavlova, in the years before her death in 1931). “In classical roles, everyone considered Vladimiroff better than Nijinsky,” Balanchine told me. Nijinsky was famous for his gigantic leaps, seemingly suspended in midair in slow motion. As was Vladimiroff. They were rivals. Balanchine continued, “When Vladimiroff leaped, he soared—he seemed to stop, pause, and suspend in midair. So light on feather feet. And his grand pirouettes”—rapid spins in place, balanced on one leg, with the other leg extended ninety degrees to the side. Balanchine described how, pirouetting, Vladimiroff would accelerate his spins to a blur, seemingly several revolutions a second. Then he would leap up, bending his supporting leg (the leaping leg) while continuing to revolve in the air (his other leg still extended at ninety degrees), then, after a full circle, land effortlessly, and continue spinning. This airborne spin he would repeat several times before closing his extended leg into fifteen or sixteen pirouettes that gradually slowed down, coming to a stop with a simple pose. He would lower and open his palms to the audience at the end of these pyrotechnics, calmly offering