I Was a Dancer - Jacques D'Amboise [91]
That night, in my dingy dressing room at City Center, I waited for Balanchine to come upstairs and fantasized him saying, “Awful! How can you go on so unprepared! Tomorrow, all day, I will rehearse you … and the next day and the next … over and over each phrase, gesture, expression, we will work!”
In the dressing room below, I overheard the muffled voice of Balanchine talking to the three ballerinas who had danced with me. My heart pounded as he left them, and then I heard his footsteps fade away, going downstairs, instead of up to me.
Miserable, I sat there sweating in my jockstrap, thinking, “That’s it. I’m quitting dance. I’ll finish the season and after that, no more.” Louie the doorman came to turn out the lights and found me sitting numb and dejected. “I’m closing up … you got to get out … I’m locking the door.” I dressed, went down to the bulletin board where the rehearsal schedules are posted, and scrawled, “FOR JACQUES—tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday—Apollo rehearsal 3 hours a.m., 3 hours p.m. ALONE …” and underlined it.
I got what I asked. Alone in a studio, I took each step, analyzed it, and practiced, repeating it over and over again at different tempi—slow motion, then fast, faster—even danced with my eyes shut, to explore the possibilities in the movement. I would repeat this regimen with the next movement. Then, I’d do the first and second steps together to find the flow between them. Next, progress to the third step, and repeat. Now, put first, second, and third together, finding the bridges. And so on, until I’d rehearsed every step in the ballet, including how my arms, head, torso, and legs were positioned even while in the middle of lifting the ballerina, practicing my partnering without a partner. It took two hours to get through a two-and-a-half-to-three-minute variation. I even practiced breathing, where and how I would breathe. By the time I performed the role again, I’d made a quantum leap and stumbled upon an interesting paradox: through detailed practice and countless repetitions, there is freedom. Vladimiroff had told me that, but you only learn by doing … maybe.
Previous to my experience in Apollo, I would perform my roles the best I could, rehearsing only the hours required by the choreographer or the demands of the ballerina who was my partner. I enjoyed performing in a thoughtless sort of way, improving a bit and, generally, having success.
Apollo launched me on a new trajectory. For each role, I began to set goals, analyze how to reach them, and, laboring alone, strive to reach the imagined criteria, until those original goals were no longer a challenge. Skills were acquired, and increased skills demand increased goals. I’d set the bar higher, and launch myself anew. In the artist’s pursuit, there is no ultimate end—whether musician, painter, actor, writer, choreographer, architect, director, poet, or dancer. I believe that pursuing and perfecting, as well as performing, foster a kind of morality. There is no place in the strict discipline and mathematics of the art forms that are music and dance for anything false.
If someone of quality mentors you, you are lucky. If that someone is Balanchine, you are blessed. His was more than teaching, it was a philosophy of manners. The best mentor sets up an environment for discovery, suggests and demonstrates, and leaves the artist alone to explore. Years later, when I was directing the musical Lady in the Dark, a dear friend and superb actor, Michael Tolan, advised, “Go into your rehearsals loaded with bullets. Know everything about the play, the characters, the history, the style—but don’t tell your actors anything about their characters. Leave them alone. They will find out more about their characters than you ever dreamed. They will surprise, delight, and amaze you. By trying to do it for them, you deprive them, and, ultimately, you waste a tremendous resource.