I was a dancer : a memoir /

SINCE Jacques d'Amboise was among the most distinguished American male dancers of his day - his prime was probably 1952-74 - it is startling to read, in his memoirs, of his part in a stabbing. He had been a student at the School of American Ballet for several years when in the summer of 1949, heading home through Washington Heights in Manhattan, he found himself in a clash with a local bully, who produced a switchblade. "Without even thinking, I did a grand battement - a big kick - knocking his hand and sending the knife flying," d'Amboise writes in "I Was a Dancer." "The force of my kick spun me around on the ball of my foot 360 degrees. I arrived with both feet under me in plié, leaped in the air, and jumped so high my feet kicked down on top of his shoulders, smashing him to the ground." Then d'Amboise, infected by "the virus of the bully" pinned down his opponent, "stabbed him in the buttocks, tearing through his jeans, piercing the skin and drawing blood." What followed, "like a bucket of water," was "a wash of shame." Within months, d'Amboise - age 15 - left high school to join New York City Ballet at the invitation of George Balanchine, And "before I was through my teens," he reflects, "I had been introduced and exposed to artists who would, in later years, become legendary." Balanchine is foremost among the artists remembered in this memoir, but d'Amboise also mentions Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, Jerome Robbins, Michael Kidd, Lew Christensen, Merce Cunningham, John Cranko, Martha Graham. "They were my mentors, teachers and choreographers" he writes (though it's never clear how Graham worked with him). "Often, Stravinsky, Gould and Bernstein would be in the orchestra pit conducting or at the piano playing." The audience included Alfred Kinsey, Anna Freud, William Faulkner, Salvador Dalí, W.H. Auden and Franchot Tone. So this is a tale of personal transformation, and of a young man recognizing himself in a great role. In 1957, Balanchine cast d'Amboise in the title role of his and Stravinsky's "Apollo." D'Amboise notes how the choreographer had already summed up this ballet in a sentence; "A wild, untamed youth learns nobility through art." D'Amboise was the foremost interpreter of Apollo in an illustrious era of New York City Ballet. It's too bad that few Americans have seen the 1966 Hamburg television recording in which he and Suzanne Farrell dance while Stravinsky himself conducts. Even though it's filmed in exceptionally cramped conditions, it remains the most galvanized performance of this classic I have ever seen: music and dance seem to meet as if for the first time. D'Amboise stayed with City Ballet for almost 35 years, leaving a few months before his 50th birthday, in 1984. But before that departure, he'd reinvested his verve into his National Dance Institute, through which he worked and still works with children. In an affecting passage late in the book, d'Amboise takes three paragraphs to describe what was involved in assisting a boy who, unable to get from his right foot to his left on the music, became terrified and unable to move at all. "I put my arm around him and said, 'Let's do it together. We'll do it, moving forward, in slow motion.' We did. Then I said, 'Now do it alone, and fast.' With his face twisted in concentration, he slammed his left foot down, directly in front of him, smack on the musicai note. The whole class applauded. He was so excited. He was on the way to discovering he could take control of his body, and from that he can learn to take control of his life." "I Was a Dancer" is highly engaging, with many passages of particular import for Balanchine devotees. To anyone acquainted with d'Amboise's career, however, it will feel as if central portions are missing from his account. Instead of fully covering the years 1962-82, he writes two chapters, " Balanchine's Muses" and "Lincoln," about Lincoln Kirstein. Granted, these are important - what he says about Balanchine's relationships with his ballerinas is acute and revealing, and. what he says about the manic-depressive Kirstein, the co-founder of City Ballet, is generous, compassionate and, occasionally, shocking. (Among the book's other revelations, d'Amboise recounts a late-1970s incident in which Kirstein, in bad condition, approached Balanchine and bellowed, "You're fired!" This doesn't stop d'Amboise ioving this "wounded giant" the more of the two.) BUT there's nothing on the making of several major Balanchine ballets. Why nothing on "Who Cares?" (1970), one of the ultimate demonstrations that classical ballet had become American? Here, to Gershwin music, Balanchine - for whom Fred Astaire was the greatest dancer of the 20th century - gave the all-American d'Amboise a role that, without any break in style, both invoked the casual elegance of Astaire and quoted the newly minted classicism of "Apollo." By passing over it, does d'Amboise mean it was a period piece that now, without the original Balanchine style, has passed its sell-by date? He hints as much but refrains from saying so outright, instead spelling out his reservations about the way Balanchine is performed today. In the chapters concentrating on Balanchine's last years and his death, in 1983, d'Amboise offers a chronologically chaotic collage of diary and recollection. He gives the sense that the whole purpose of life changed once the master had gone. This is heightened by d'Amboise's perplexity that nothing came from the several assurances by Balanchine and Kirstein that they had considered him to be Balanchine's successor at City Ballet. (That successor is Peter Martins. D'Amboise speaks of his admiration for Martins's work while implying that City Ballet's glory days are over.) The descriptions of Balanchine's changing moods in his final months are touching. One poignant image, of the ballerina Karin von Aroldingen, Balanchine's closest friend among the dancers of his final era, cradling the dying choreographer's head while singing the German lullaby "Guten Abend, Gut' Nacht," is piercing. Though d'Amboise lingers on this and other deaths, his temperament is too energetic for him to end on a downbeat. He never tells us of the 2009 death of his wife, Carolyn George, a photographer and former City Ballet soloist with whom he founded the National Dance Institute; we have the sense he can't bear to include it. Enthusiasm is what he does best, and he makes it infectious. His grin - once likened by Arlene Croce to that of the Cheshire Cat - was celebrated, and is captured here in a marvelous David Levine cartoon. The smile is wider than the torso. Alastair Macaulay is The Times's dance critic.

D'Amboise opens his memoir with a prologue, framing his book as a meal a long time in the making: It took over a decade to prepare and serve these pages. Anecdotal and episodic, this book is a buffet of stories. As a storyteller, d'Amboise is a master chef as he recounts how a wild, untamed youth learns nobility through art. Mixing humor and horror, he vivifies ballet giants Balanchine, Tallchief, and Lincoln Kirstein, as well as world tours with the New York City Ballet. The narrative is thrown off balance, however, when d'Amboise attempts to spin memories, backstories, and asides into one dizzying pirouette. Readers seeking sensationalism will be disappointed as, save for exposing terrific egos, the anecdotes barely allude to thorny topics such as eating disorders and incestuous dance-company relationships. Any truth broached by d'Amboise is supplemented with astonishing photos and detailed footnotes. When focused, the story, imagery, and passion coalesce into a vivid staging of the ballet world that will satiate the hunger of any ballet enthusiast.--Fronk, Katharine Copyright 2010 Booklist

In this lively memoir, former New York City Ballet principal dancer d'Amboise (Teaching the Magic of Dance) details his career at the company-but barely mentions his work for Broadway and Hollywood. He exuberantly recounts his childhood, arrival at the School of American Ballet, 35 years at NYCB, and his beloved National Dance Institute. Now 76, d'Amboise reveals how close he was to George Balanchine-sharing a decade's worth of New Year's Eves, acting as mediator in the choreographer's love affairs, visiting him daily in the hospital during his final year, and so fully assimilating the master's approach and style that it was assumed for years that d'Amboise would succeed Balanchine as head of NYCB. Instead, d'Amboise founded the National Dance Institute in 1976 to involve public school students in the transformative power of the arts, for which he credits a full and love-filled life. The segments devoted to major figures in 20th-century ballet, including the Christensen brothers, John Cranko, and Balanchine's many muses-while informative, lack the humor and narrative pull of the main story: how a street kid who literally tried to fly, developed gravity-defying elevation and superb artistry as a ballet dancer. 106 b&w photos. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

In his engrossing recollections, d¿Amboise writes, "My memoirs are not filled with angst... Everything was given to me, and all of it was the best of the best." This sunny summary understates his commitment to hard work and his unabashed love of ballet. By the age of 17 he was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, where he danced for 35 years. Later, in 1976, he founded the National Dance Institute, a successful arts education program that is still making a difference. The touchstones of d¿Amboise's remembrances are the ballets he danced and the artists with whom he worked. The choreographer George Balanchine was a central influence in his life, but d'Amboise shares entertaining stories and insights from such luminaries as Lincoln Kirstein, Antony Tudor, Maria Tallchief, Allegra Kent, and Diana Adams.VERDICT Like Bob Dylan's Chronicles, d'Amboise¿s memoir is episodic and nonlinear, an approach not all readers will appreciate. But his writing style is conversational and casual, and his voice is enthusiastic, optimistic, and full of wonder-balletomanes will not be able to put this book down. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/10.]-Joan Stahl, Head Librarian, George Washington's Mount Vernon, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.