This trip to Russia not only helped me realize a lifelong dream but was eye-opening in terms of how fortunate we are as Americans. ABT prima ballerina Nina Ananiashvili escorted me on a personal tour of the Bolshoi School and the Bolshoi Theatre, after which I was invited to sit at legendary Maya Plisetskaya’s vanity. Several rotations of the wheel had come full circle. With incredible joy, I relived my memory of seeing my first full-length ballet performed by the Bolshoi in Boston and of witnessing Maya’s heart-stopping performance. Now I could share with my daughter a sense of the greatness for whom she had been named. When we visited Saint Petersburg, seeing the Kirov was another pinnacle for me. So many of my Russian and Eastern European mentors had glided across these stages that I had read and heard about since the age of nine. Amazing.
Before leaving Moscow, Pat Gempel, a woman on a mission, took me and Maya to a circus orphanage she supported just outside of the city. Each child was required to learn a circus act. The children put on a special performance and amazed me with their level of ability. On the drive back to the hotel, an unshakable melancholy came over me, as I looked out the window at the gray buildings set against the gray sky and thought of orphans everywhere, tucked away, forgotten. In that moment, the only redeemable light I could glean was the knowledge that even in a circus orphanage, there was hope in the children’s faces for a future.
The power of ballet to transform young lives was a national tradition that went back more than two hundred years to 1773, when the Trusteeship Council of the Moscow Orphanage decided to provide ballet classes for orphans, whom they referred to as inmates. A former dancer with the Saint Petersburg Court Theater Council, Filippo Beccari, volunteered his services as an instructor and exceeded expectations. The children wanted to learn how to dance. Out of his sixty-two pupils, an astonishing twenty-four became soloists. The Moscow Orphanage resoundingly became the mecca of ballet training in Russia and provided dancers to its Ballet Theatre.
Pat, a role model of a surrogate sister, saw for herself how the trip had reinforced my desire to do more to empower children and youth through the arts. She must have known that when she called the next time to ask, “Hey, Vicki, want to go to Africa to visit my AIDS clinic in Abidjan?” that I would find a way to negotiate my work schedule to make it happen. South Africa Airlines, here I come.
With the certainty of African soil under my feet, I eagerly anticipated stepping into the rich history of South Africa. Once settled in my hotel located on the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront inspired by Prince Alfred in the 1800s, I took in the verdant majesty of Cape Town, boasting over fourteen hundred species of plants. The subtle fragrance of the flowers, like the jacaranda, was unforgettable.
Rather than be a typical tourist, I hired a local tour guide, who provided clientele like me an opportunity to experience Cape Town and beyond by foot. I peered into a dilapidated clapboard one-room building where passbooks were once issued to natives of South Africa, granting them permission to work in Cape Town before the end of Apartheid. I emphatically told the dreadlocked tour guide that there had to be a way to preserve the building as a historic landmark. He replied, “They want to tear it down.” We walked farther into the village, where I was welcomed by a host of families into their homes. Each home smelled of burning fuel so pungent I thought I’d pass out. But the warmth that exuded from the women in their individual shanties tending to their families was infectious. Where were their men? I wondered. Where were the fathers of these children? The guide told me that finding jobs in Cape Town was difficult, therefore forcing the men to seek work miles and miles away from home for extended periods of time. Many women suffered the consequences of these long separations, later resulting in contracting HIV. The highest population of people succumbing to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) today are women on the continent of Africa and their sisters in America.
As the sun fell behind Table Mountain, I prayed for tomorrow to come swiftly, as I had reserved a chopper to carry me to Robben Eiland, Dutch for “seal island,” also known as Robben Island. In 1991, Robben Island Prison had closed its doors forever but had reopened as a museum under President Nelson Mandela’s administration and the South African Natural Heritage Programme. It was something I had to see to understand what Madiba had lived through. I also wanted to get a glimpse of a rare migrant seabird, the Caspian tern, flying free against the South Atlantic Ocean, protected against further extinction. Yes, that would be in keeping with my interests in ecological oases. But the greater purpose was to connect to Mandela, Madiba, through this geography and history.
At dawn, I was awakened by my first mother, Africa. She bathed me with her sunlight and fed me with the fruits of her labor and sent me into the world to see more of what her altruistic beauty had in store. Energized, I ran with her love to the heliport, only to collide with a very frantic American photographer. He immediately asked if I would forfeit my helicopter, whereupon I replied, “It’s my last day in Cape Town, and I must see Robben Island.” He gave me a blank stare and said, “No one can get on the island today without credentials. Nelson Mandela and Arnold Schwarzenegger are lighting the torch for the Special Olympics this morning.” The photographer had missed the boat that took security and crew earlier and was desperate. I said, “Okay, take it.” He and his crew looked at one another, perhaps expecting a different reply, then he turned back to me asking, “Do you know anything about photography?”
Should I err on the side of complete honesty? As I stared at the multiple cameras that swung from their shoulders, outfitted with mile-long lenses staring back at me, why, it was a bit intimidating. But I was a photographer. It may not have been with a Leica but it was all I needed to record time between time. Never lost on me was Agatha’s philosophy that if there wasn’t a photograph, it never happened. I had been taking pictures since I could remember, and Gordon Parks was my hero. It was my way of keeping a personal diary. So I replied, “A little.”
“How about being my assistant? It’s the only way you’ll get onto Robben Island today.”
I was excited beyond words; the historic significance of the day ahead was palpable. Into the chopper we filed, lifted into an uncharted stratosphere. Not only was I going to see Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, I was going to work side by side with Francesco Scavullo’s former protégé, Dee Swanson.
Through a veil of dust churned up by the chopper’s whirling blades, I could see the infamous penal facility. We landed. The security was extremely tight. Once I was approved, I joined the photography team and entered what felt more like a sanctuary than a prison. It was very quiet; only the echo of our footsteps could be heard as we followed the guard deeper into the austere prison. Deep-rooted suffering left behind could still be felt. The guard abruptly stopped and slipped the worn key into the lock. The heavy iron door was pushed open. The key was placed in the photographer’s hand, and once the guard disappeared, Swanson placed it into mine, for safekeeping, as he and his crew left to scout another part of the prison. I stood there, in the middle of Madiba’s cramped cell, alone, motionless, with history in my hand. How did he survive it? I dropped to the cement floor, face up, with my arms and legs outstretched, making angels as I did as a child in the snows of Maine. It was all I could offer up for his suffering.
The moment had arrived. Security plowed through the crowd, warning people to make way. But who could stay back? Mandela was magnetic. Noticeably fatigued, with two attendants steadying his impressive physique, he made his way to the makeshift dais and made his address to the overflowing press corps and guests. How lucky I was to be there.
On the grounds of what had imprisoned his body but not his mind, on his own volition, stood President Nelson Mandela, one of the most celebrated leaders of all time. The evil of apartheid implored each and every one of us to look to ourselves to bring change, no matter what the circumstance. At the end of his passionate address he said, “You have to turn tragedy into triumph.”
The applause was deafening. How could
I not try harder? With that, he turned and lit the Special Olympics torch with the assistance of Arnold Schwarzenegger, his wife, Maria Shriver, and her brother, Timothy P. Shriver.
I couldn’t help but admire the dedication the Kennedy-Shriver family publicly exhibited with the leadership of their mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, formerly Camp Shriver, in 1962, in tribute to her beloved sister, Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy. American royalty changed the compass in me forever that day, reinforcing the idea that it was important to embrace all of our population, all members of our families, regardless of the disorders, disabilities, or differences that characterized them; it was a major release for me to realize that I didn’t have to live in shame over my mother’s mental illness.
In talking to Timothy Shriver, who served as executive director of the Special Olympics, I was gratified when he invited me to become more involved and handed me his business card.
In time between time, those moments between moments when miracles happen, Mandela’s eyes met mine as he was leaving. With his long arms draped over his attendants’ shoulders, he pointed his left index finger to me. I touched it, accepting his energy, saying silently to myself—Father of all fathers, thank you, thank you for drawing me to this place, nearly ten thousand miles away from what has become my home.
Mother Africa provided a seat for me at the most splendorous banquet table of all, feasting on forgiveness and remembrance, the fall of apartheid and witnessing the father of all fathers, lighting a torch in the name of mental illness. So many victories were celebrated in a single morning, through one remarkable man and the bravery of so many others. I left the island full as I sailed back to the mainland, holding on to Mandela’s words with Dorothy in my heart, floating like a jacaranda seed away toward Côte d’Ivoire, Abidjan.
When I arrived in Abidjan, Pat Gempel was there to pick me up, ready and waiting with her no-frills, no-nonsense warmth.
When Pat took me to the market, I was struck by seeing so many familiar faces in Abidjan. I saw my Agatha with a basket on her head, Aunt Barbara and Aunt Joan selling fabric, Uncle Richie with a machete slicing coconuts. All their faces were permanently sealed on the west coast of Africa because that is where their ancestors had originally come from. These were the distant mothers, sisters, aunts of so many of the women who had raised me.
I continued on my journey the next day to Pat’s day clinic for AIDS patients. Once there, I was greeted by the Harvard graduate who had given up his illustrious career as a doctor in the States. He led me to a makeshift infirmary where a woman lay prostrate, in absolute stillness. Her effort could only be spent on moving her sunken eyes in acknowledgment of us in the little room where other mothers were waiting to die. I sat next to her and held her hand as the doctor described the need to expand the clinic. As I left with Pat beside me, I asked the doctor what would become of the woman I was with. He replied, “A local nun will take her to a resting place. She will be gone in a week.”
Heading back to America, with a heavy but fully determined heart, I took hope and courage from the friend that Pat Gempel had become, and knew that I would look to her for guidance in the balance that must come between caring for others and for ourselves. A friend, a sister, she had helped reunite me with my lost family, giving me the gift that I would always remember of that incomparable voyage, that woman’s eyes in the AIDS clinic, the air, the merciful beauty of Mother Africa.
I was back in the Hollywood grind. Culture shock with a capital “C.” On those occasions when I ran myself ragged, I would reach out to a core group of my sisters/mentors/advisers. Colleen Atwood was one of them. Colleen, who was on her way to Oscar gold, for Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha, and juggling numerous projects while being a dutiful mother, epitomized that fundamental principle I had first learned from Agatha Armstead: Diligence pays off.
Back during the days when she so generously housed me in her New York apartment, I marveled at how Colleen could simultaneously study for her union entrance exam, perfect her design sketches, and beautify our meager surroundings on West Eighty-first Street in Manhattan.
“Vicki,” she announced to me one evening, “what do you think is under here?” as she tapped the linoleum underneath her foot. I answered, “The only way to know is to find out.”
A beat ahead of me, Colleen led the way as we began peeling and scraping every lick of old linoleum off the floor. Though we caught glimmers, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together, we really didn’t know the answer to just what was beneath until the whole was revealed. Finally, we beheld the gift—beautiful, naturally preserved, planked wood. That’s what we had both been trying to establish in our professional lives. A foundation on which to build. Colleen may not have consciously thought up that demonstration for my benefit, but the metaphor was an heirloom passed on to me just like the bestowal of a single piece of nineteenth-century Limoge I proudly display in my home today, ever the reminder to look beneath the surface.
Like Colleen, other sisters who pursued careers in the arts inspired me to raise the bar. Prima ballerina assoluta Susan Jaffe had done so from the moment we became friends in our earliest days at American Ballet Theatre School and Ballet Repertory Company. Susan broke the mold, making it possible to be authentic and individual even within the rigidity of ballet’s strict requirements. She accomplished this masterfully by being boldly sensual, adding a touch of earth to her ethereal grace, all the while embodying purity at every level with a sense of humor. I witnessed her evolution, from the pressures of being groomed to be a soloist to becoming an understudy for legendary Gelsey Kirkland. This was compounded by the uncertainty that the call might never come or that it could come at any time.
But the call did come, and Susan rose to meet the challenge. Maybe it was the shattering loss of her mother at a young age that built the alpha resilience to face any monumental circumstance thereafter. That once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step up to the plate and into the lead role of Clara in Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker had arrived. She was partnered by a man who most believed to be the greatest danseur of all time, Mikhail Baryshnikov. She dazzled a critical Lincoln Center audience expecting to see Kirkland. Knowing that fate could manifest such things, how could I not be ready for opportunities when they came my way? Preparation was for free.
Two decades later, we both had aged imperceptibly from that bicentennial year, studying with Madame Pereyaslavec, Leon Danileon, and Patricia Wilde at the American Ballet Theatre School. After an extraordinary twenty-two years as a principal dancer with ABT, Susan would take her final bow, dancing the title role of Giselle at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
I wouldn’t have missed her last performance for the world. It signified the beginning and the end of an era. Many curtain calls later, I navigated my way backstage, a place I hadn’t been to in as many years as Susan had been dancing professionally. There was Susan among all of her well-wishers and endless bouquets of roses. The surprise on her face was priceless when she saw me. She was the apex, the spire I would have wanted to reach had I stayed in the classical ballet world, but I had no regrets. Susan, upon retirement from the stage, cofounded the Princeton School of Ballet and Theatre in conjunction with Princeton University. Susan Jaffe, deservedly so, had ascended to become one in the pantheon of great dancers; already leaving a mark on ballet forever.
The career advice that manager Irene Kearney had given to me years earlier about “letting that ballet thing go” had yielded a harvest of success. Still, letting ballet go entirely would have been impossible, like abandoning a child or forgetting my native language. When I first stopped dancing as a way of life, I went through my own mourning process. For many dancers, or athletes for that matter, the sudden loss of self when they no longer live to perform can be akin to facing an abyss of uncertainty. My dear friend, colleague, and sister Kimberly Von Brandenstein, a fellow dancer from my post-ABT years, wrote me in the early 1980s after just starting NYU. She would atta
in an art degree and, after marrying and becoming the proud mother of twins, would go on to teach art at Princeton University. She captured the times well:
I decided in June or July that I had danced my last step professionally. You can imagine how troubling a decision that was for me. I loved to dance so very much. It makes up a lot of me…. By not being able to dance last year (due to a back injury) I was forced to broaden my scope and realize that new and wonderful horizons were open to me.
Days go by and I wonder about my dear Vicki and the very first time we met…our gin and tonics and Morelli’s [dance studio] and City Center…I smile a bittersweet smile. How I’d love to go back in time three years and do it all again. But, alas, the future awaits us and we still have so much to share! Colleen Atwood tells me of your new ventures (acting).
Vicki, my deepest love to you and your well-being. You will always remain one of the brightest stars in the sky!
Patricia Knight—whose friendship and sisterhood went back to Cambridge and Carol Jordan’s insistence on the power of muscle tone—maintained her connection to ballet by taking class for no other reason than it made her feel good to do so. After Patti became an executive at the Boston Globe, I happened to tell her how I had never forgotten those years of receiving Christmas gifts from Globe Santa, a charity effort undertaken by the Boston Globe. As a child, I eagerly looked forward to the presents provided by Globe Santa.
Along the way, I found the balance and the peace to embrace that part of me that was and will always be a dancer. Dance would remain la dolce vita, the sweet life. I could use it, be it, anywhere I would go. Ballet was enmeshed in my cells, in my identity, as enduring as the importance of a first love. To honor that, I would take a class periodically, but not in any rigid or scheduled way, and occasionally perform and conduct master classes.
The Women Who Raised Me Page 30