Maria Calegari and Bart Cook

Speaker I’ve heard people say for years that Jerry liked simple, honest movement.

Speaker Can you explain that?

Speaker Simple, honest movement.

Speaker It’s interesting to think about the type of movement that Jerry was interested in, simple and honest is a way to describe it. He didn’t want any pretension or performing. I think spontaneous in the moment can help describe honesty, you know, so that it doesn’t seem premeditated or calculated, but a natural in the flow of the idea of the choreography.

Speaker Yeah, it just the idea of the simplicity of the movement. It was almost as if he wanted it to be non dance. Certainly, if that makes sense, you know, with Mr. Balanchine, we reskilled ourselves to be so accurate politically. And then with Jerry, it was like we had to unpoetic the movement, you know, and to make it more personal, more human. So the simplicity came in to that type of idea or imagination somehow try to describe.

Speaker I’ve heard along those lines, I’ve heard several people say that dance together was something that was very special to them to dance, if that’s true or not.

Speaker And if it is, I did enjoy dancing dancers at a gathering, especially the beginning after the five hundredth performance. It was hard but to capture the spontaneity again that he wanted and it had to do is not performing so much. Or there was a very delicate balance between including the audience and not selling the dance. He really wanted it to be within the gathering and they were voyeurs watching us relate and I enjoyed that aspect of it. But at the same time, some of the choreography was dead. And there you were doing your combination while the girls running around you dead. Frank, what do you do?

Speaker You have to perform as well. But it was this balance that Jerry was very interested in natural.

Speaker Mhm. I mean for me to be dancing and to, to have a role and dancers at a gathering was like the icon of Jerome Robbins repertory. So it was very you know, you were very tense about it and anxious. And I did the purple girl mostly, although I did do also the green and the pink at some times. But it was really special to finally get to perform in that in that ballet.

Speaker So beautiful dancers at a gathering was one of the first Robbins’ ballets I went into, and it happened the first year I joined the company. It was amazing. I went right into the Robbins Repertory, one of the other dancers that hurt his toe when we were in Saratoga Springs. And I did a minor role of the blue boy that does the Kaching was a great responsibility, but I didn’t know at that time in my career or how big of a deal that is gathering was.

Speaker I like the piece very much, but here I am, my first nine months and I’m being cast in this piece and so didn’t have the onus on it that. But I loved it. I loved it. And then I got my own permanent part the next season when the other boy was better with Robert Marano.

Speaker When I said this is a gathering, you just let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to tell me more.

Speaker I would the part I did, the giggle boy didn’t come on that much, but my adrenaline would start during the 80s right before my dance and something I haven’t felt ever again, no matter what.

Speaker In anticipation of the dance and participating in that wonderful ballet, don’t you think also that it was these roles were so, so cherished by the originators, not only by us all who had seen them, but of course, by charity. And as everyone knows, he was constantly trying to recreate that first incredible those first amazing performances. But, you know, to do the role of came as I was just so special. And there is something about his piano ballets that are just exquisite. And that whole atmosphere was was unique as well to to dance. And it was just wonderful and quiet, you know, so special, so intimate, so beautiful that at one point I wanted to do more in the ballet.

Speaker And because I had a few dancers as they could go, boy, if one of the of men had a bad back, they would say can do the positive for me because it would fit in. And I always had time or I can’t do the the grand waltz tonight part can do it well, you know, seasons would go by and I would be dancing every role in the piece, you know.

Speaker So I finally said to Jerry, why don’t we rearrange it a little bit? I know that when you did it originally, you couldn’t come up with the order. But if I’m going to be in it, especially as I got older, I didn’t feel like the giggle boy anymore. So he thought about it and then he said no.

Speaker And then he gave me a chance to do the Brown Boy for two performances.

Speaker I actually. Loved every minute of it. Mm hmm.

Speaker Did he how did he encourage you to sort of dance with each other more or less than Balanchine? And can you talk about that?

Speaker He did. Balanchine wanted you to dance with your partner in a very different way. That was total involvement. You would look at you would look at the woman with with your aura and you’d lead her forward. And Jerry wanted something, again, a little less formal and more intimate and series pieces, for the most part, afforded more opportunities, more types of interaction between couples and more more opportunity for, quote, acting. I wouldn’t call it acting as you find yourself in the situation and you react appropriately to that situation, which is different because the dance is different.

Speaker He was brilliant at helping you with the relationship acting relationship to the other person. The other the role, you know.

Speaker How did he do?

Speaker Well, he did a lot with terror plots, and if you couldn’t figure it out, then suddenly you couldn’t do anything.

Speaker I mean, that was one of the things I learned from him immediately was you can’t you can’t slap dancers into behaving. You have to coddle them. If you were bright and you didn’t take it personally, you couldn’t figure out what he was doing, and some days he was very kind about how to do it, and some days he was brutal and it wasn’t always directly spoken.

Speaker I don’t know a director’s skill. You know, you’re selling it to hard baby or you’re supposed to be dancing with her, you know, not by herself or not. Then during a variation, you’d say sell.

Speaker So, you know, it really depended on the situation and your ability to intuit where he was going. I think a good dancer has to have that ability and a good director has the ability to let the dancer know. And it’s very rarely spoken.

Speaker Jerry in rehearsal. OK, describe Jerry in rehearsal, Jerry.

Speaker In rehearsal, a quiet, very quiet, very pensive, very concentrated, seemingly approachable, but at the same time very unapproachable. You know, I always thought, oh, he he could be like your best friend person. But this is not the case, actually. Right. I think we all fell into that trap, perhaps. So, you know, scary. Definitely scary. I mean, you just never knew how he would react to what you were doing. You know, you would maybe perhaps think you were copying yourself each time or doing as well or perhaps better. But you just you could never you could never read him. You could never depend on what the reaction would be. So it was pretty intense in that in that way and again, very different in the creating periods than the rehearsing periods where we would be on stage or whatever.

Speaker Those were two different types of experiences we were talking about in the creative experience.

Speaker He was much freer and perhaps we were as well in that spontaneous like it’s the first time we’re creating the piece of things flowed.

Speaker And it was wonderful, really. It was fun. It was great fun. And then, you know, it’s like second performance, always harder. And then you try to keep recreating that. You try to keep capturing that and it gets tense or more tense. More tense. It’s hard. So I’m.

Speaker I would say that, Jerry, during the rehearsal process, was he the focus he was so focused on what it was he wanted to do.

Speaker And usually when the idea was concretize, the value was set, you were filling in for someone else, it was very difficult to duplicate and he was extremely demanding that you create that magic that he felt as it occurred to him to make it or as he experienced the first Castanza.

Speaker It was always the joke about go look at the videotape. What was this originally?

Speaker But. In the creative rehearsals, he was also focused, but it was much looser, much more give and take, sometimes he had to pretend that your input was his idea. Other times he would have an idea that we would spend hours trying to put into dance, and sometimes it would happen and sometimes it would just be shelved or resurface in another piece.

Speaker How confident do you think he was as an artist?

Speaker I myself always wanted him to be more confident in his voice.

Speaker And, you know, who is it me to say that some of the most beautiful things that he created on a first time would be whittled away and simplified into something that was not as good in my mind. Though I don’t I didn’t have the overall picture of what he was going for, but he could never accept compliments.

Speaker Excerpt from Balanchine, he accepted compliments and he was so happy, but he needed that he needed that kind of support, but I think he he rarely was able to accept what he had done as being good.

Speaker So hard on himself.

Speaker He was so hard and so I remember I wrote him a letter once because we had done a performance of In the night and I thought it was spectacular performance. And I really I mean, it was really a beautiful performance and great review in the Times. And, you know, the audience loved it. He came down on me so hard the next day I was in tears. I was it was like one of those devastating moments with Jerry.

Speaker So I found myself writing him a note about, you know, how, why, why, how can you not why can’t you just accept the joy, the joy and that it was good, you know?

Speaker And so he was tough on himself and I. Yeah. How did he respond?

Speaker You know, I think he said thank you. He kind of mumbled it, you know, like, you know, he he got things every once in a while, you know, and he turned the corner and he he’d hear it. But it was, you know, far and few between moments.

Speaker Have a good example. Out in the public world, when when Jerry received a Kennedy Center honor, we were in a car or a taxicab. I can’t remember. The driver said, oh, we’re going to the White House tonight, you know? And yeah, this man I’m trying to make conversation. This man is receiving the award this evening. Oh, yeah? Well, who are you?

Speaker Course, you know, slinking back in the cab. And I said, this is Mr. Roberts, Mr. Jerome Robbins, who created, you know, West Side Story on the road and works at the New York City Ballet.

Speaker And and each thing I said, Jerry got smaller, you know, and I couldn’t couldn’t give the man get the man off the hook or, you know, he was pretty nervous that whole trip anyway. But who wouldn’t be?

Speaker Mm hmm.

Speaker Right around the time that you joined the company I was making oh, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker How many times were you were you in when he was actually making.

Speaker Yes. Again this year that I joined. Well, I shouldn’t say again, I’m not supposed to do that the year that I got into the New York City Ballet. Mr. Robbins had completed most of the Goldberg Variations, but the finale had not been accomplished. And we were in Saratoga Springs and he was working on the finale. Also that year in Saratoga, we presented a concert version of sections that he chose from the Goldburg and presented the finale dance as far as he had done it. I remember working on it in Saratoga Springs again. He took all of the newest company cards and didn’t make the principals come to these rehearsals. And, you know, we were always being used and then our roles giving to someone else. I mean, this was very Jerry happened to me so many times, the Goldberg finale.

Speaker I used to think it was going pretty well and some of the dancers would say this is less tedious than he’s been working on it for two years. And so it was the country that, you know, everybody gets in the circle and it went pretty well.

Speaker How would you say his response to Bach was different than some of the other composers he worked with?

Speaker As far as his response to Bakos, I think especially the Goldberg Variations being what they are as a catalog, I felt that he was also trying to be a catalog of ideas that kind of corresponded with box catalog.

Speaker It’s a little bit.

Speaker ABC, DFAC, rather than a response to the beauty of the different variations. Now that’s also there as well. I mean, there’s some beautiful stuff in the Goldberg and there’s some ingenious choreography. But I think it came from the challenge of that. I mean, just as Bach was using the same thematic material to illustrate the different modes of of writing, the gavotte, etc., the jury was matching him.

Speaker Hmm hmm, you look like you were about to say.

Speaker No, I’m sorry, I mean, I danced it, but, you know, it’s OK. OK.

Speaker And that was followed by a very unusual ballet that you were in the original cast of Watermill or what those were like.

Speaker Watermill was a very exciting and strange experience. I learned he had a house at Watermill Beach. I learned Long Island, you know, what are we doing here at the workshops about no drama? I heard about one of the first things he did was a celebration dance with myself and Danny Lamont. And we had Tibetan whips or something. I don’t know. They were like BOLO’s. And he had two two things that would go in opposite circles. And then Lamont was very much into studying Hindu dancing. But we did a whole rehearsal of this kind of Hindu stuff to weird music and never saw it again, never saw it again, never had it referred to.

Speaker And that was my beginning. Experience with the watermill suddenly were in the room with Lantern’s moving, then you’re going too fast.

Speaker And we weren’t moving at all.

Speaker And, you know, there was some pretty strange rehearsals when he would come into the room high and sit under the table and we’d go through it and he wouldn’t say a word. And you get up and leave or else he’d bark at us and come back and things would be changed. And we did a very strange when I was working on the demon, somehow I had the effect on him of being his super conscious or, you know, I’m the little angel on his shoulder as opposed to the little devil on his shoulder. I mean, I had to be the castrating demon that’s punishing the character in the watermill in the songs. I was going to be, you know, you know, Bible thumping preacher, which never got there, though. We spent hours on the dance. Right. It’s kind of the role I felt for him was the minister, too. But the watermill about his I think it was autobiographical in my idea or slightly.

Speaker Actually, it’s every man’s autobiography is more to the point and theatre, pure, beautiful theater, many, many hours of tedious rehearsal. But he did get us all behind him finally. And I think we all pulled together to make something quite spectacular.

Speaker Never forget the audience’s first reaction. It was total silence and then blew through its way.

Speaker And then over and over here, you know, it must have been like it was, you know, the rite of Spring and the chancellor’s theatre. But it was amazing.

Speaker And we were laughing backstage and it turned into this action more and. Fascinating, fascinating piece, which he did recreate many years later, and I got to do the lead role, actually, along with John Cusack. It was a strange, strange performance experience. Very, very strange.

Speaker The lead person does nothing but observe, and he runs with the men and then he does a slight dance and his dance is is disrobing. And then, of course, he cloaks himself and wanders around and looks at the moon. I mean, he he reacts to what’s going on. He hears the observer. And. It’s a strange thing to do a whole piece as the observer rather than the observer, the doer, the happened to her rather than the make kapner.

Speaker And the fact that you bare naked and their is going on and you have to stay completely focused on what’s going on.

Speaker Very interesting. And tell me about the rhythm of.

Speaker How did we establish the rhythm center that we had counts for? One of the only sections that really moves along are the men with the batons doing the exercises, and of course, it was kind of like moves where after so many counts, the first person would initiate the series. You know, we sure are doing the same exercises, facing different directions. That one would start after two moves and then the next one would start. And sometimes we would accelerate and add in double fast after where it would spread out. And of course, this was Jerry’s genius of timing, when to disturb you, how long something could hold with nothing making the tension. How long before that could be broken? We had some very, very I learned some exciting things from him during the demon, which is holding still four seconds, you know, like an animal. Again, it’s the cage situation, his his influence with nature and and then moving at the speed of lightning and then holding still. And then try to wrestle the straw and then the way he put the sound effects and to punctuate either the silence or the movement, quite brilliant and it would change ever so slightly. And then suddenly the next time we move that sound and put it somewhere else and it would have a major effect. Was pretty, pretty interesting, we had the soundtracks of the dogs barking and the airplane going over nature, they’re all timed to the to the second after this person does that move, two beats pass and the airplane starts after the airplane finishes, four beats pass and the picnickers come out and I’m not giving you the right order. But it was hard to watch those poor girls harvesting the wheat and picking the potatoes.

Speaker And, you know, I heard some people say they just loved watermelon and some people just hated it.

Speaker Very, very interesting theatrical event.

Speaker Too long now the the performance was about an hour or just over an hour, was long, took patience audience with Twitch and he would he was able to break it up and again change the interest even if it was just the moon. It’s like in the film of West Side Story when suddenly.

Speaker Or the Broadway show.

Speaker Suddenly they’re singing and you’re outside and the fire escapes of the period and you didn’t know how they got there, Watermill is full of that.

Speaker Full of that.

Speaker Yeah, I did once, I was not in the car and when I was taking care of some of Jerry’s stuff early on, make myself sit through it several times in the audience as an audience person.

Speaker And some nights was easier to get through than others. I do think it’s one of those things that you look at, depending upon your mood, it can take you somewhere or annoy you completely, and especially if you’re taken by surprise, purchasing a ticket, not knowing what you’re getting for. I think New York City Ballet audiences were not ready for this. Mr. Balanchine would let Jerry do whatever you want. It was Lincoln he was very upset about. I don’t know. He thought it was just a crock of actually, I believe he started the booing.

Speaker I think it was Lincoln who booed opening night just to get things going.

Speaker I’m not sure that.

Speaker I’m lucky enough to be in the greatest of seventy two, I wonder if you could tell me what was the difference in Jerry’s response and Balanchine’s response to this enormous task?

Speaker What about these two? Very challenging. A short time.

Speaker Mm hmm. Um, the Stravinsky Festival was such an experience. And again, it was my third or fourth year in the company. I was a nubile not knowing too much history, not being from New York, not having any of that baggage. So I could kind of. Experience and process the present, and Mr. Balanchine was recovering from lots of things that had happened in his life, and this was a major, major step through. And he signed so many ballets to so many different choreographers. And Jerry was, again, one of the U.S. is naturally Balanchine, of course, was way at home. And Stravinsky learned and, you know, the violin concerto he had done four times already. It was just those things would come out in 24 hours and we would see them. Jerry did Requiem Canticles, um.

Speaker It was a much more. Earthy approach to Stravinsky, much more the.

Speaker Human element, Balanchine and Stravinsky, I think, would go up here into the mathematics and the connection of spheres and, you know, you know, it’s like this.

Speaker And Jerry would react to the peasant rhythm, you know, with like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

Speaker So requiem canticles. Very religious, but also very pleasant. I mean, we crawled across the stage on our knees, beating our breasts and, you know, made made sculpture in the center and did, uh, units and body movements and.

Speaker They responded to the task at hand.

Speaker Oh, how they responded to the task. I don’t think Jerry was too used to being assigned what he was going to create. I think he took it as a great challenge. And he was very much a team player at this point in the company. He always was in his way, though. He was he was the bad boy on the block, you know, but he always had carte blanche and he knew it. So it could be that and balancing.

Speaker I think let him choose his music. I don’t know how that went, I would love to know that answer. Establishing assigned him his task as he did some of the other choreographers, but. He he was done with his rehearsals. I mean, I had to be with him and everything I was at that point, according to Robbins dancer, we divided so that we couldn’t.

Speaker So the.

Speaker We didn’t need to be in two places at one time so they could both be working in the same studio. And I think Jerry felt some pressure about the time limits. I mean, he always needed more time than he got. I mean, he threatened once I became his ballet master for the Gershwin concerto, he he didn’t think it was ready to go on the premiere date. And he kept saying to me, I’m going to pull this, I’m going to cancel this. It’s not ready. We can’t do this. Hit the scene that I thought I better report to Balanchine that this was a possibility because it was like two days away. And to be said, I don’t know, it will go in whatever state it is, you know, just tell Jerry that it’s beautiful and that everything’s fine and we’ll present it. And he can continue to work on it, but it will go so. The Stravinsky, oh, during this festival, everybody was under pressure and it was it was total magic, we almost would sleep in the theater and we would be late to rehearsal and we’d run over a. In the dressing room, we like can’t remember this ballet because of that one, and we’d be talking counts before we get into the room. I think Jerry enjoyed it. I think he did that, um, a lot of pieces were presented during the festival, unfinished Balanchine’s as well. I mean, Symphony three movements was in dreadful shape when that first took the stage. Violin Concerto finale wasn’t even finished. The principals went off to the side and stood and then came back in the final step. And I mean, I didn’t have firsthand knowledge of those, but I remember the history of watching it all. And luckily, I got to dance most of those other pieces as well.

Speaker So, Maria, hang on.

Speaker No, I’m fine, I’m just. No, no, no, it’s not. I’m so fascinated. Yeah, I’m just my posture is waning to wet my lips.

Speaker Oh, yes. There’s a there’s a very good tape of.

Speaker Yes, you are doing so.

Speaker And Yes. No, I’m okay. Thank you. Thank you very. I don’t know what I want you to start. Right.

Speaker What do you recall about the process? I think that Jerry actually started making about. Correct. Tell me what he did.

Speaker He did. I don’t remember the first rehearsals of the did it. But I remember Jared’s excitement about finally getting to do this project, I think it was something that he had held dear to its heart for years. And Bernstein was writing his score and he thought it was going to be his next West Side story. And he really wanted it to be. And he went at it with such vigor and he brought us all a copy of the play. And I must admit, I never could get through the reading of it, but I got the gist of it. And he began teaching the possession dance after the man is dead and he comes back to possess like a. And we work that through.

Speaker Only later did I find out that was related to my not myself.

Speaker I did again finally and get to dance the things that were created on me that for the most part, he would work them out on me and then give them to some of the other men. I did have a part in the debate as one of the. To get what we’re called the priests, the magicians, and of course, it’s about the Kabbalah and the different symbols, I think that Bernstine incorporated some of the numerology in the counts, which they’re a little strange, and that we would do the earth and the heavens and, you know, the north and the south and we’d face the different directions. And fascinating stuff.

Speaker A very interesting and then he would go into a trance because he would connect the spiritual realm or the magical realm, whatever, and the other priests would have to take care of him. And they would he would faint or electric shock to, you know, flicked up in the air. It was actually quite acrobatic and. And to work on he was he was quite inspired, some of the best material for the debate. Of course, no one has ever seen because he axed it. I mean, there was a wedding. There were all the women over here, all the men over here. And we were dancing. There was a.

Speaker Lots of scenery, lots of pets, costumes. There was a beginning, a middle and an end. And what it is today is. The essence of the Kabbalah dances and what they call it, sweet of dances.

Speaker Now, we never did get all of that scenery on the stage. He looked at it and threw one million dollar gold plated flame away. After the next, you see, there was a big flame that that the the derrick was supposed to appear from behind as he as he possessed her gone after the first day. So all of the props, costumes gone.

Speaker After the first season, I think he got cold feet, maybe he felt it wasn’t cohesive, maybe he was afraid to be as Jewish as he needed to be to tell this wonderful story. You know, if you’re going to do it, do it. It’s fantastic stuff. You know, he was always so afraid of his own shadow and.

Speaker The vic and.

Speaker His original idea about it, which never came to fruition, Jeri’s. Inability to be true to his real voice. I don’t know, I think it goes back to his his life. I mean, here’s this wonderful play about the Jewish tradition, this wonderful score that’s extremely Jewish and Jerry trying to do it. And I believe getting cold feet as well as it may be not working. He wasn’t happy with it theatrically, but generally when he wasn’t happy with something theatrical, he would work work at it until it worked. And I think he was still under Mr. Balanchine’s abstract shadow and he was afraid to follow his.

Speaker Calling with the drama and dance, I mean, he, of course, made major breakthroughs there as well.

Speaker But at this point, at this point, you could hardly do a story that they couldn’t make it abstract. I mean, what is it if it either is or isn’t? So this he again didn’t, I don’t know, felt it would flop, didn’t have the courage to go for it, whatever it was. There was a lot of wonderful things that didn’t stay. And I know he had the whole plan because I saw it and. I was lucky enough to go with Jerry to Jerusalem, invited him to come and open one of the theaters with this one concert group, and we did some we did the five massacres and up through the grand walls of dances and gathering. And I was still quite young in the cast, but he loved Jerusalem and he loved his heritage. I was with him at the Wailing Wall and he.

Speaker Was ashamed of it at the same time, it annoyed, I don’t know or I don’t know whether it’s a shame or trying to be some kind of guilt. I don’t know. Coming from a Mormon family, there’s a little bit of a guilt connection there as well. But, you know, you love, hate what your tradition is, but.

Speaker As far as the debate goes, it didn’t end up being what he wanted either.

Speaker I know because the original plan was so much more than it was. I was frankly surprised when they revived the suite of dances. I haven’t seen it yet. And in my memory, those were the crux of the good material. I mean, it was the heart of the ballet, but there was a lot of other stuff going on as well.

Speaker Um, when you were with the jury, what did he do that made you feel like he wasn’t really coming to terms with his Jewishness?

Speaker It wasn’t so much they’re there on the trip in Jerusalem when we went to be the concert group, he gave a feeling of I love this, I love this place. I love contributing to this theater. You know, I’m not charging a fee.

Speaker You know, all of this. And we we went through the old town together. He says, oh, no, you can’t go through this. You got to go through the Jaffa Gate. And I know this place. And come on, we’re going to be here for this. And we went to a restaurant and he did all the ordering and we split the bill right out.

Speaker Jerry, you know, he never had coin money to call on what used to be a pay phone, but he loved it. And it was very exciting to see Jerusalem that way with him.

Speaker But when he gets to make a ballet about it. Cold feet, sort of, I thought I mean, we were we started with all of the Accutron, so we had the prayer box on her forehead. I mean, we were totally decked out with the I’m sorry, I don’t know all of the terms, but and the wedding ritual, it was just so just as in the play, you know, very it’s one thing again, after the next off out and suddenly the story gone suddenly not even in the playbill as Leah and the Dubik, you know, not even a reference to the Derek only through the title of the music, which I’m sure if Terry were like you were like eliminated, you know, you have to call Lenny up in heaven and say, what do you think about it?

Speaker Well, we’re going to do it anyway. We don’t care what you think about it, so.

Speaker Were you privy at all to interaction between Jerry and Lenny and what was that like?

Speaker I was a little bit yes, and Omri has a wonderful Leonard Bernstein story, I was and it was during this difficult situation and Lenny would come in to the rehearsals with the newly written music and sit down, play it. And it’s fantastic. And we would work with tapes of the piano stuff to put the variations together. And, you know, he’d come in with, oh, I can’t remember even feeling better with the dancers at the wedding, which I was very excited about.

Speaker I thought that would be really cool, you know, Fiddler on the Roof, whatever that wasn’t it.

Speaker But that portrayal of that moment in life. And we did it and it was gone.

Speaker And, you know, he he would say there’s too much or there’s not enough and.

Speaker They speak Lenny threw a party at his townhouse after or I can’t remember where it was after the performance and they weren’t getting along too well at that point, as I remember. I mean. I think Jerry might have been upset at him because he felt the music didn’t come through. I don’t know.

Speaker What’s your story?

Speaker My little story, very short, just, you know, just remembrances of Jerry and up in the main hall rehearsing in G, Major Polidor and I guess Leonard Bernstein had come in to work on something with Jerry and he found himself up in our rehearsal. And there was nobody there, you know, one of those private moments in the main hall or whatever. And and he was at the piano and Jerry came in and introduced me. And of course, growing up as a New Yorker, you know, at my age, Leonard Bernstein, and was just the god of music, I guess. Right. And just a wonderful person and. Oh, my God.

Speaker And so Jerry said, this is Maria. And of course, needless to say, he broke out into playing Ave Maria for me and he sang it. Oh, it’s wonderful. So it’s a good story.

Speaker A good memory. A beautiful memory.

Speaker It was great. It was great. I just wanted to not have to go through the rehearsals. Then could we just sit and listen to the radio? Yeah. Then I partied together. Oh, yes.

Speaker Then we had to rehearse the energy major because you know, such a big presence. Right. So huge. Fantastic. Yeah, it’s great. Tell me how it was that you became Jerry.

Speaker It’s a good story.

Speaker Is a good story. Reprise When I joined the New York City Ballet. Mr. Robbins saw my abilities almost immediately and I was taken into his repertory very rapidly because of injuries or whatever, given some wonderful opportunities. And, you know, I didn’t even know who Jerry was. I knew what West Side Story was. I had been in it. I had been Baby John at the University of Utah, but I didn’t know Jerome Robbins was the man that did this whole story. And here I am working for him. Took me a while to go.

Speaker But lucky in a way, I came to New York to dance for Balanchine. It was Serenade, it was Symphony, and it was his words that I had seen that I came looking for.

Speaker Got the wonderful added plus of happiness to Robbins, his second in command and creating at the peak of his creativity.

Speaker And it gave me an advantage because I wasn’t frightened of him or anything, I could just be and do what was necessary working with Jerry, it made the working relationship I had with him different than he had with most. I mean, he didn’t scare me. I mean, at one point he made something derogatory. And I just, you know, looked at him and said, you know, you don’t want to use me. Don’t call me to rehearsal. You know, I wanted to be in the other room. Well, this made him like me even more, I think. And I was able to cope with his isms. I could read him as well as anyone else. You know, what he needed to do.

Speaker I went to Mr. Balanchine. I said I finally got my courage up. I said I came to New York to dance for you. I want to do more for you.

Speaker And this came at a period when Jerry was really in trouble.

Speaker I mean, we had done ballet master after ballet master for one reason or another, for Jerry would leave the New York City Ballet. He had no one at the time. I had helped him out when we did studio live from Studio 8H Live Performance. It was such a difficult situation that Jerry was asked to leave the studios and we he needed a lesson. So I was on the telephone and going out to dance and then in the camera booth looking the angles, calling Jerry, saying this thing, going out to dance, and we finally put it together and got on in time for the live performance. It was very interesting. Balanchine was aware of this and of course, he would not let let Jerry cancel because it was the New York City Ballet and Jerry threatened again. I pull this project and he said, no, you will not, because it’s the New York City Ballet dancing Jerome Robbins.

Speaker It’s not Jerome Robbins dancers.

Speaker These are mine. You will do so. We got it out there. It looked great. I thought, of course, he was never pleased. At any rate, I got my courage up. I went to Balanchine, said, I want to do more for you.

Speaker Not an hour passed before Mr. Balanchine came down to the stage, took me out of rehearsal. He says, I have something for you to do, my dear.

Speaker You will be Mr. Robbins, ballet master assistant and I like.

Speaker But that’s what you know. So he knew that Mr. Balanchine was very, very clever. So at the same time, I’m dancing all of Robin things now. I’m his ballet master.

Speaker I have to, you know, hold his hand, get his coffee, take his notes.

Speaker All of this learning steps still be in all the new pieces, teach the other steps. And now Mr. Balanchine starts to cast me and all of the roles that I should have been doing for four years anyway. So suddenly now I’m getting Violin Concerto an hour gone and the Four Temperaments. And after I asked, it was like a floodgate open like this. It’s fantastic.

Speaker And it was wonderful to the few times, very few. When Balanchine and I were able to talk about Robbins or Robinson, I able to talk about dancing. I was a little bit like the bond between two parents for a while. And, you know, it was it was a fascinating situation to be in, but that’s how it happened.

Speaker And after Jerry was very good, he taught me some really interesting things about how to start to take notes. And I used some of that to this very day. And he taught me a lot, a lot, a lot about how not to do things.

Speaker I think the most valuable lesson from Mr. Robbins is how not to do in order to get done.

Speaker Like you can’t slap someone and expect them to do it. Correct. You can’t terrorize someone and not have them break on you. After two weeks, they’ll be injured you no matter. I mean, of course, you can save time in rehearsals by screaming and beating up on him. The temptation is high, but I’ve learned you’ve got to do it correctly from the beginning. Otherwise it goes in wrong. And every time the dancer comes to that step, you will see on their face that moment of torture that they went through in order to achieve that step for their fall.

Speaker I’ve actually seen it happen so that.

Speaker Oh, I’m getting Chinese sweating. He’s sweating for a second.

Speaker I was his right away for years.

Speaker OK, well, for most of it here, rolling, just like you said before, they had this conversation about who you talk to. You’re sort of in the middle between the two of them at certain points.

Speaker And I’m wondering what you heard Mr. Balanchine say about.

Speaker When I finally went to to speak to him after he asked, after Balanchine asked me to become Mr Robert’s assistant and help him out that way, he said, you can learn a lot about choreography. I can express my interest in doing that. You can see the process. And most of all, you can help me.

Speaker I mean, you asked what you could do, other things Balanchine would.

Speaker I’m so sorry. What’s going on here? Well.

Speaker Thank you. I’m so sorry, refrigerator, someone is making noise outside.

Speaker I’m sorry, are we really.

Speaker Balanchine and Robbins had a very interesting relationship, naturally. It’s the first violin, the second violin and one senior and the apprentice and different outlooks on art, yet respecting each other’s work. Balanchine was fascinated with with Jerry’s part of the work and the organic ness. And I think Jerry was fascinated with Balanchine’s core work and the logic and Jerry’s ballet technique vocabulary small.

Speaker Just didn’t have it.

Speaker I mean, he was in his early history, of course, he was incredible. He took many ballet classes. The one class he taught that I took was not good.

Speaker I mean, he didn’t know the classical names of the steps. He didn’t want them to be done in the same way that Balanchine did. And that went right to the crux of the essence of their different creative vision. And it eluded one, eluded the other. They would both stand in the wings and watch each other’s pieces in total amazement. You know, once was it Peter Peter Martenson? I was standing there in the wings after a ballet or something. And no, it was during dance gathering and we’re on the stage. Mr. Balanchine was standing there watching what was going on, and he he started to make funny jokes about the titles of his ballets and make a limerick about dances at a gathering in the night the cage came open. And, you know, he’s throwing them all together. And I thought, this is my boss being irreverent about the other boss. I it was it was great fun. And we almost missed her entrance.

Speaker Jerry would want us to do a side that Balanchine hated, and so he’d get all these Balanchine Pudd’nhead people up in the room and then all of a sudden, you know, I don’t care how George wants.

Speaker I want it like this.

Speaker Yeah. You know, they. So they they would go back and forth this way.

Speaker Scherzo fantastique, the first thing I was in awe of, Jerome Robbins created new creation for the Stravinsky Festival.

Speaker What a disaster. It was one of the hardest things I had ever danced, stamina wise, with Kelsey Kirkland, who was the biggest star in the world. And I was asked to do some steps that were technically over my head and he could have changed them. I guess I did finally rise to the occasion, but it was a killer. All of us would die, Kelsey included. And if one of us was injured, there were no covers and.

Speaker All of us went together to say, can this at least not be put on anatomy? You know, we went into this balancing of scheduling because we were intimating that we didn’t like the piece and it was hard to do and get through, et cetera, which it was. And he let us have it. It’s not up to you. You will never get. At the same time, I think he thought it was a pilot as well.