I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [49]
Ultimately, by 1964, Balanchine would finally get from Lincoln precisely what Balanchine desired—his own company, made up of dancers trained from childhood at his School of American Ballet, performing in his theater, the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center.4 Balanchine molded that school and sculpted that company. The partnership helped Lincoln realize his dream, as well—a world-class ballet academy and a world-class company—but on Balanchine’s terms. The difference was (to Lincoln’s bile) that Balanchine ran the show and realized the visions, not Lincoln. In the early days, Balanchine would address the dancers, “We—Lincoln and I—want this, you know. We are family.” In the first decade, there was no guarantee that the company would survive. After Balanchine was safely ensconced in the New York State Theater, it became, “I want!”
The first international NYCB tour (by invitation from Covent Garden, England, in the summer of 1950), and subsequent tours arranged by the impresario Leon Leonidoff, kept NYCB alive for years. Leonidoff, a friend of Balanchine’s from the Diaghilev days, took a chance, to everyone’s benefit. Tours gave employment between short City Center seasons, allowing us to dance! dance! dance!—and eight performances a week, for months, during normally off-season periods, helped us evolve and solidify a style and reputation. Further, reports and reviews from the big European cities—Paris, London, Berlin, Hamburg, Milan, Amsterdam—drifted across the Atlantic and illuminated the New York audiences and critics to the jewel they had in their midst. We gained the Old World stamp of approval.
In 1950, ten months into my first year as a member of New York City Ballet, I was on my way to London. For a fledgling company that had started some two years before, and for this fifteen-year-old, it was incredible. I read a dozen books on the city of London and the history of England, and, dazed with delight, struggled to understand pence, shillings, pounds, and crowns.
My sister and I arriving in London, 1950 (image credit 4.1)
Balanchine was ecstatic. He was forty-six years old, having left London for America close to seventeen years earlier, and was returning to perform at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden with his new ballet company. Lincoln Kirstein was triumphant. For years, he had been shooting his mouth off to English friends about his great plans for ballet in America, and now he could flaunt his accomplishments. We had the theater to ourselves for five weeks (later extended by a week), then a short layoff, followed by engagements in three other cities.
Balanchine delighted in informing me of the proper manner of drinking tea, as there was a possibility the company would be hosted at a tea ceremony by the queen. “Diaghilev taught me. You know, with silver tongs, take only one lump of sugar, not greedy. And when you stir sugar, only half a swirl. Bzztt. Now, no sound—slurp, slurp—when you drink tea. And never finish tea to the end. Always leave a little in cup.”
England in 1950 was still recovering from the devastation of war. Blackened shells of bombed-out buildings pockmarked the country. The company dancers were on their own to find accommodations, and I found a rooming house on Upper St. Martin’s Lane; it had neither heat nor hot water. We were issued ration stamps for everything—soap, toilet paper, candy, food. Back home, I ate meat all the time, relishing my bacon in the morning, hamburgers at lunch, and sirloin or pork roast at night. In London, there was no meat. A stagehand, overhearing me complain, whispered