{"id":12496,"date":"2011-03-08T10:37:45","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T15:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=12496"},"modified":"2018-12-11T13:09:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T18:09:35","slug":"jacques-damboise-on-%e2%80%98i-was-a-dancer%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/08\/jacques-damboise-on-%e2%80%98i-was-a-dancer%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacques d’Amboise on \u2018I Was a Dancer\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacques d\u2019Amboise, born Joseph Jacques Ahearn in 1934, began his dance training at the age of seven with Madame Seda in Washington Heights. Within a year, he was hopping on the subway to the School of American Ballet, the feeder school for the fledging company started by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. By the age of fifteen, he had joined the New York City Ballet, and by seventeen, he had dropped out of high school and become a soloist. For the next three decades, d\u2019Amboise partnered with some of the most exquisite ballerinas of the day, and as Balanchine\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, he had numerous ballets made specifically for him. Critics hailed him as \u201cthe definitive Apollo,\u201d a role that he claims changed his life. He was also known for his wildly exuberant screen presence, most notably as Ephraim in <\/em>Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the Starlight Carnival barker in <\/em>Carousel. <\/em><\/p>\n

As his dancing career was winding down, d\u2019Amboise embarked on a spectacular second act: founding the National Dance Institute in 1976, a program that brings ballet into public schools around the country through classes, residencies, and performances\u2014all for free. His memoir, I Was a Dancer<\/a>, published this month, recalls his seven decades of dance. Although d\u2019Amboise says he is slowing down, the evidence suggests otherwise: as we sat over cups of caf\u00e9 au lait in SoHo, he felt compelled to rise from the table to demonstrate a particular sequence of ballet steps. The other patrons were as surprised\u2014and delighted\u2014as I was. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where did your mother get the idea that you should study dance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

She never finished elementary school, but at home, everybody read books. Especially French books: Victor Hugo, Maupassant, Dumas. She always dreamed that she would be an actress, in drama, and that educated her: she\u2019d dance, recite poetry, use beautiful words, speak French, and act and sing. And her dream was that all her children would be brought up that way.
\nAnd it came true!<\/p>\n

It did\u2014for three of us. In the early days of New York City Ballet Society, we were all in. My sister stopped because she married the company doctor and she was quarter ballet girl. She had a minor solo once in a while but nothing really. I think I did my solo before I was seventeen and I was doing principal roles while I was still quarter ballet. And Freddie Ashton came to the U.S. and did a ballet for me, and then I did my first movie. I turned eighteen on the set. I just did what I wanted and had everything given to me. And in a way that was why I started National Dance Institute: I never had to audition for anything; I never had to pay for a dance class.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What year did you start National Dance Institute? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It started with just boy\u2019s ballet in the late sixties, so that children would get introduced to ballet. After a year or two of that, they would perform in huge shows. But in 1975, I really started going into schools, trying to re-create what I had done myself. I had taken dance with a very high quality, to live music, and performance oriented. So I went into schools and gave free classes, once a week, to boys. Well, the girls rebelled, and I had to do both. And I just couldn\u2019t do one grade, I had to audition or try third, fourth, and fifth grade. But because six people would get up and leave in the middle of regular classes, the teachers didn\u2019t like it. So now the entire class, no matter what, has dance. And if you\u2019re in a school where there are five fifth grades, with thirty to thirty-five children in each class \u2026 you know we have no drop-outs? We teach four thousand children.<\/p>\n

Your book is so filled with joy\u2014the joy of dancing, of being a dancer, of being around dancers\u2014and I found that so refreshing, given the way popular culture, like Black Swan<\/em>, wants to take the suffering and the pathology and put that at the forefront. <\/strong><\/p>\n

And also the salacious elements. I get lots of people who say, I studied at the School of American Ballet, and oh, I\u2019ll never forget Mr. Balanchine with his stick. The clich\u00e9 of the ballet master with the stick, hitting the leg and so and so, right? And that\u2019s a false clich\u00e9! Now, was there a time? Yes, probably, and some people. But if you have to define Balanchine, it\u2019s good manners. He would never sit if there were a woman in the room. He would never allow a coffee cup on a piano. He\u2019d come in and he\u2019d look around the room, and if he saw a ballet bag or a coffee cup, he wouldn\u2019t say anything but he\u2019d take remove them, and then he\u2019d say, \u201cStart! First position!\u201d That\u2019s all he needed to do!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so clear that you loved Balanchine, but in the book, you write that you loved Lincoln Kirstein more. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Because Lincoln was a total wreck, a mess, a giant dysfunctional genius of mad energies and passion. Everything you said, he feared he was wrong. He\u2019d yell out, \u201cGood taste is my taste, buster, good taste is my taste.\u201d At the same time, he\u2019d think, I\u2019m wrong, I couldn\u2019t do it, I\u2019ve picked the wrong artist, or I\u2019m supporting the wrong person, I\u2019m doing the wrong thing. He was so vulnerable. He was a wounded elephant, with all the power of an elephant, full of doubts and fears.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a line in the memoir that I love: \u201cWith Robbins, you were amplified; with Balanchine, you were transformed.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s the single best line in my book. And I think it came from a conversation. I was talking with Kay Gaynor and other people about trying to describe what Robbins did and what Balanchine did. One was the transformation of what you already were, and the other was what you didn\u2019t realize you were capable of being. Jerry took what you are, watched you, studied you, and then amplified it and used it. Balanchine looked, and said, \u201cOh, very beautiful girl, very nice\u2014I bet she could move faster. Maybe she could be a pony. Maybe I\u2019ll do a ballet about ponies.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the texture and rhythm of a ballet dancer\u2019s day? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an extraordinary thing to be a ballet dancer. You cannot divorce yourself from the music. You get up in the morning, you warm up, you stretch, you do a little floor mat. And now ballet class starts and for the next hour or hour and a half, music is your floor, and you are interpreting that music by the way you move. No sooner do you finish, and then you have five minutes before you\u2019re in rehearsal. You rehearse for three hours. You may be in one room with Jerome Robbins, you may have three hours with Balanchine, you have an hour\u2019s break to eat lunch but you don\u2019t eat lunch, because you\u2019re going to be rehearsing all afternoon. So except for a one-hour break, you have been going nine hours with music. Now, it\u2019s six o\u2019clock. You\u2019ve got two hours before the curtain goes up. During those two hours, you eat something, but not much because you\u2019ve got to perform. So you shower, you wash, you put on your makeup, you go on stage, and you practice what you\u2019re going to do when the curtain goes up. Or work with your partner. Or if somebody\u2019s injured, you learn what you\u2019re going to have to do to replace them. Now it\u2019s a half hour, right? You\u2019re in your costume. Fifteen minutes, curtain goes up, you\u2019re out there with the symphony orchestra. Stravinsky\u2019s conducting, or Robert Irving. And you\u2019re dancing to Tchaikovsky or Mendelssohn or Chopin or whatever. Incredible music. Now it\u2019s eight. If there was a pas de deux and I wasn\u2019t a principal dancer yet, I\u2019d always be in my dressing-room costume and get down to catch the last act. It\u2019s now eleven o\u2019clock. You\u2019re ravenous, exhilarated, on a high. And you go pig out on food and you go to bed at twelve thirty or one o\u2019clock, and then get up and do it all again. And more on Saturdays and Sundays. When we\u2019d go on tour\u2014four, five months\u2014on your day off, you wouldn\u2019t take class. You\u2019d go sightseeing in Florence or Amsterdam or Copenhagen or wherever. So except for that one day a week, you have music all the time. All the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacques d\u2019Amboise, born Joseph Jacques Ahearn in 1934, began his dance training at the age of seven with Madame Seda in Washington Heights. Within a year, he was hopping on the subway to the School of American Ballet, the feeder school for the fledging company started by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. By the age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[1942,1944,471,1943,1940,46,1941],"class_list":["post-12496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-ballet","tag-black-swan","tag-george-balanchine","tag-jerome-robbins","tag-lincoln-kirstein","tag-music","tag-new-york-city-ballet"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJacques d'Amboise on \u2018I Was a Dancer\u2019 by Yona Zeldis McDonough<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 8, 2011 \u2013 Jacques d\u2019Amboise, born Joseph Jacques Ahearn in 1934, began his dance training at the age of seven with Madame Seda in Washington Heights. 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