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“Lucky for all of us that you came back. Audiences have always adored you.”
“The connection I felt with audiences was very special for me, spiritual in a way, as if we experienced some sort of deep exchange. A psychic once told me that in a previous life I had been a temple dancer—a healer. So when people would come up to me after a performance and tell me that my dancing gave them a spiritual lift and helped them forget their troubles, I felt really great. I always wondered if that psychic was right about me because I really did want to improve people’s lives.”
“What was your internal process like? How did you prepare for a performance?”
“Music was always the first thing for me. Once I connected with the music, I learned the choreography very quickly. Then once I knew the steps, I’d begin thinking about how to interpret the role. But I was never a finished product. I was a spontaneous dancer. I needed to lose myself in performance, be in front of an audience to fully develop a role. It never happened for me in rehearsals. My partners used to tell me that I was twenty pounds lighter on the stage than in the studio.”
“You partnered with some of ballet’s greatest male dancers.”
“Yes, I had several great partners who, like me, were spontaneous dancers and felt the music the way I did, dancers like Ivan Nagy, Fernando Bujones, Erik Bruhn, and Rudolf Nureyev. Dancing with them I heard the music a little differently, and no matter how I phrased the movement, they’d be with me. Our dancing was of the moment, so we didn’t need to plan every fingertip, every eyelash. We had a general idea of the steps and where we wanted to go, but each night it would be a little different. And I loved that. I never danced as well with partners who played it safe. I preferred the risk-takers. If something went wrong during the performance, they would roll with the punches. Nureyev, for example, would flip things around and make the choreography even better. Fernando Bujones had such incredible technique that if I would do something unexpected, like an extra pirouette, he’d spontaneously do something amazing too. The audience just loved that.”
“Do you miss having those moments on the stage?”
“You know, Rose, I honestly don’t remember what that feels like any more. I don’t know if I miss it. I feel that my dance career was fully realized—from beginning to end. I left no stone unturned. I had a fabulous career. But I also believe that having a family and being a mom are even more wonderful.”
“Before we finish, I must ask you about Swan Lake.”
Cynthia smiled at me, as if she knew this question would be coming.
“What can I say? I just loved dancing Swan Lake. It was the first full-length ballet that I danced with ABT, and it was the role that established me as a principal ballerina. I danced it all over the world and with twenty million different partners,” she said with a laugh. “It’s one of the most important ballets of my career. In 1986, I wrote a children’s book called Cynthia Gregory Dances Swan Lake. And in the book I write that I thought that Tchaikovsky wrote the music just for me. Aside from the music, what I loved about the ballet was that I got to play dual roles. I could be lyrical and beautiful and then I could be sharp, alluring, and sexy. The choreography felt natural on my body because I was a large ballerina—tall and long-necked like the image of the swan. I felt like it was made for me.”
“Do you ever have dreams at night that you’re dancing on the stage?”
“Interestingly, I dream that I’m on tour—late for a flight or can’t find my shoes. But I don’t usually dream that I’m on the stage dancing. The reality is that I’ll always be a dancer. You’re always a dancer in your mind and in your heart. And I do love that I can still dabble in it, coach, and advise young dancers. But I don’t feel that I need to be involved with it on a daily basis. After I returned to ABT after my breakdown, I always made time for a personal life. And this is what I tell dancers: Don’t be in that theater or that studio twenty-four hours a day. Don’t live with blinders. Open your mind to everything else that’s going on around you and then bring your real life into your dancing.”
“You’re very down to earth, Cynthia. I doubt most people know that about you.”
“Yes, I’m very down to earth—I’m really California laid-back. I’m just somebody that had a talent for dance and went with it. I’m really just a regular person that loves family, loves people, and animals. People are stunned when they hear that I do my own laundry and push my own cart in the supermarket. But I think it’s important for people to know that I’m just like them. Some say it ruins the illusion, but I’d like the American public to feel closer to dancers and not regard them as so esoteric and removed from everyday life. I think if artists were more accessible and regarded as real people, then more people would embrace the arts, and we would all have a richer and happier society.”
Greenwich, Connecticut, 2004
Jacques greeted me at the offices of his Manhattan-based National Dance Institute. After showing me around and introducing me to his staff, he donned his backpack and said, “Let’s grab some lunch.”
“You have an amazing operation,” I said as we walked to a nearby deli. “You’re really making a difference in the lives of young kids.”
“My goal,” he said, “is to bring dance to children all over the world, rich and poor—from the highest to the lowest points on earth—Mount Everest to the Dead Sea.”
“That’s ambitious.”
“Yes, it is, but we are doing it. In fact, I only have about an hour for our meeting today. I leave for China at the end of the week with a group of kids. There are still a million details to be worked out.”
“What exactly do you need from me,” he asked, taking a seat and handing me a menu.
“I’d like to get your take on what it’s like to have a career in dance and live the artist’s life. You’ve been doing this since you’re what—seven years old?” Before he could answer, a pretty young waitress appeared and asked, “Vhat can I get you?”
“Govoryte po-russki? [Do you speak Russian?]” Jacques asked her.
“I’m from Bulgaria,” she replied.
“Ah … let me see, I think Bulgarian is very similar to Russian, yes?”
“Yes, very close,” she said. Relishing the opportunity to practice his Russian, Jacques learned within minutes that the name of our waitress was Sophia and that she’d soon be returning to her native land to finish her university studies.
Jacques nodded his approval and gave Sophia his order in his heavy New York accent.
“Yes, I did start ballet at seven,” he said, picking up where we’d had left off. “I attended the School of American Ballet at eight. George Balanchine cast me as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream before I was nine, and from then on I performed many of the children’s roles in Ballet Society, which was the company that preceded New York City Ballet. When Balanchine invited me to join the company, I quit school. That was in the summer of 1949. I was fifteen years old. He gave me a flexible contract, so I had the freedom to do a variety of things. I went to Hollywood at the age of seventeen to dance in the film Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. I turned eighteen on the set. I became a principal with New York City Ballet before I was nineteen and stayed with Balanchine until he died in 1983.”
“Did you aspire to be the greatest dancer of all time?”
“Honestly, all I ever wanted to do was play,” he said. “I stumbled into the art of play on the highest level—storytelling