Every Step You Take

by Jock Soto

  Stanley’s death was a blow to the school and to the company, and to the dance world at large. It was followed by another sad milestone in July 1998 when Jerome Robbins died. He was seventy-nine and had been very ill, and it had almost felt as if he might have been waiting to see NYCB reach its fifty-year birthday before letting go. Jerry had been such a force in my career and in the company overall—a genius as a choreographer and always so intense during rehearsals. I will always especially remember our rehearsals in 1995 for his groundbreaking West Side Story Suite, in which I danced the part of Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, and Nikolaj Hübbe danced Riff, leader of the Jets. Jerry had choreographed this work for Broadway, but it had never been performed by a ballet company before, which made the project both exciting and ambitious. And demanding. I remember Jerry screaming at all of us, insisting that we had to confront one another with more passion, and begin to show a real hatred for one another, as rival gang members would. We were nervous and insecure and jittery under his eye, and his tactics could be so brutal. One day, when Lourdes Lopez and I were rehearsing the gym scene together, Jerry arrived, leading a Broadway star by the hand, and he came toward me and then just slipped her hand into mine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lourdes pick up her bag and leave the room. I wanted to cry, I felt so bad for her. But she wasn’t the first dancer he had done that to—Jerry was Jerry.

  A few weeks later, Nik and I came in for rehearsal and in the dressing room we decided we had really had it with the way Jerry was treating us and the whole cast. We decided that if he screamed at either one of us that day, or at anyone, we would walk out of the room and never return. He had pushed our last button. We walked into the rehearsal room together and stood in the back. When everyone else had finally arrived, Jerry told us all to sit down. Nik and I remained in the back, leaning against the barre.

  Jerry started to talk about the importance of our roles, how we had to become the characters we were portraying. Then he looked up and pointed to Nik and me and said, “Everyone in this room has to come up to Jock’s and Nikolaj’s level. Everyone has to become a true Shark or Jet.” Nik and I felt our anger deflate; all of our resentment just disappeared. All of those rehearsals when Jerry had been so frightening and so mean faded away. It was almost as if the savvy old beast knew he had pushed us as far as he could, as if he knew we were about to walk out. In the end, I have to say, dancing West Side Story Suite was truly one of the best experiences I ever had. Jerry was a true genius, and I am so grateful I got to work with him.

  We all mourned the passing of these two amazing men, whose talents had been so essential to the spirit and execution of Balanchine’s vision. At the same time, I felt that I had a front-row seat at the birth of another impressive choreographic talent that had the potential to carry the vision forward—my boyfriend, Chris. In 1999, Chris choreographed Scènes de Ballet for the company, which featured more than sixty students from the SAB, and then in 2000 he choreographed another ballet, Mercurial Manoeuvres, on Miranda Weese and me. Miranda was a creature of great gifts, strikingly beautiful with long black hair and an intense presence. She had studied Heather’s footwork very carefully over the years, training a close eye on every move, and her homework had paid off. She had very precise, intelligent, quiet feet that could not take a bad step. At first when we were dancing together Miranda was trying to do everything, leaping and jumping and trying to muscle her way through the steps. I had to say, “Stop working so hard. You’ll hurt me. Let me do the work.” Once she understood what I meant, and realized that I could in fact put her wherever she needed to be, we danced beautifully together. There was a quietness—almost a quality of stealth—and a musicality about Miranda’s dancing that met and enhanced the same qualities in my own.

  Mercurial Manoeuvres was more complex and intriguing than Chris’s previous works, and the intricate counts and interweaving of modern and classic steps definitely foreshadowed things to come. There was a moment in the middle of our pas de deux when Miranda and I just looked into each other’s eyes for about eight slow counts. Damian later told me he thought it was one of the most beautiful moments in ballet history. No movement, just music playing and bodies breathing, souls staring into each other. A moment in time. I found it thrilling to be participating in the creation of something that felt like the beginning of a new and fresh form of expression in ballet.

  Later that year, Chris retired as a dancer to concentrate more exclusively on choreography, and he accepted a position that Peter offered him—the first of its kind at the NYCB—as artist in residence. In August he and I took one of our rare vacations together—and one that I feel marked a turning point in our relationship as collaborators—when we went to visit his family in England. At the time I was trying to encourage Chris to move away from the pure classical idiom, to find the courage to step forward and explore his yearning for something newer and fresher. I wanted him to attempt sleeker creations, to strip away costumes and sets and evoke emotions through the manipulation of movement and physical steps as Balanchine had in breathtaking ballets like Episodes and The Four Temperaments and the wonderful Agon. While we were staying in London we went to the Royal Academy of Arts to see a traveling exhibit of sensationalist art called Apocalypse, and the two of us ended up getting separated and wandered through on our own, each of us fascinated by different aspects of the exhibitions. (I remember one was a strange representation of the pope pinned to the ground by a meteorite.) When we got back to our hotel room we were both excited by what we had seen, and we decided to listen to a CD we had picked up at Tower Records on the way home. It was piano music by a composer Chris had recently fallen in love with—György Ligeti—and we laughed when we realized that one of the pieces on the CD had been used over and over in a really annoying way in the sound track of the recently released film Eyes Wide Shut. I didn’t especially care for Ligeti’s music at first, but the more I listened, the more I liked it. Finally I turned to Chris and said, “All you have to do is, when we get back to New York take me and Wendy Whelan into a room with this music and see what happens. Who could be more pliable and creative than Wendy?” When we got back to New York this was precisely what we did—and that was the beginning of Chris’s brilliant ballet Polyphonia. It was also the beginning of a new and exciting collaboration: Wheeldon, Whelan, and me.

  WHEN CHRIS FIRST started making Polyphonia for Wendy and me and three other couples, I didn’t realize how far Chris, Wendy, and I could go as a team, how far we could take ourselves in new directions. I had done a lot of difficult ballets that required stamina, but this one took things to a new level. I was excited by the maturity and complexity of the choreography. As I mentioned, I had felt for some time that Chris needed to get away from frilly ballets and to try new things—and this was definitely new. Working in the studio for hours, he and Wendy and I collaborated on the various pas de deux. Wendy and I had been performing with each other for some time, but these collaborations with Chris gave us a new relationship, a new focus, and a new level of profundity in our partnering. We began to develop a deeper trust in each other, and a deeper understanding of our individual strengths and beliefs, which in turn allowed us to let go of our individual selves and become more like two people in one body. I found it so exciting the way we three could go into a room and create something that really meant something to us, and then bring it to the stage and share it with an audience. The experience gave me a fresh take on what could be done both physically and artistically—it really felt as if we were stepping through a door into whole new territories of dance and choreography—and it also gave me the inspiration and courage to carry on. When you’re a male dancer and past the age of thirty you can begin to feel kind of lost. You start asking yourself, What do I do now? Do I continue this or do I quit and do something else? Most dancers quit around forty, or earlier if their bodies can’t take it anymore. But as Wendy, Chris, and I began to move forward in new and innovative ways, I felt a rush of energy and passion for my art
surging through me, a kind of second wind—which was really pretty remarkable, considering that five years earlier I had been seriously contemplating retirement. I think our collaboration also gave Wendy and Chris the courage and creativity to explore and shape new and exciting identities. Timing is everything in dance, and the three of us had come together at exactly the right time.

  When Polyphonia premiered, in January 2001, it was very well received, and critics especially praised its “interweaving of ballet and modern dance.” Chris really seemed to be hitting his stride when, that May, he was named NYCB’s first resident choreographer. That same month Darci and I danced the premiere of Morgen—a very beautiful, mature, and emotional ballet made by Peter as a kind of love letter to Darci—and I remember that throughout the choreography sessions and rehearsals for Morgen I was excited to sense that Peter and Darci and I were also connecting in new and deeper ways as collaborators. I could never have predicted that all these new and exciting frontiers were coming my way as a dancer, and I felt that I had learned an important lesson, not just about dancing but about life: stay curious and open, and always explore opportunities when they present themselves; you never know what you will discover or where inspiration will come from and how it will shape your life. Sometimes a series of small steps will bring you to the biggest leaps.

  I sometimes think of that trip to London and the afternoon that Chris and I spent at the Royal Academy of Arts—wandering about separately and then coming back together to discuss our enthusiasms—as a kind of marker, a moment when the seeds were sewn for a whole new flowering in the collaboration between Chris and me as choreographer and dancer working together. Remembering that trip now also brings back memories of another trip Chris and I took, the summer before our London visit, when we traveled together to visit my family on the reservation in Arizona. The Arizona trip was a very different kind of adventure from our London sojourn but, in retrospect, enlightening in its own way.

  To spare Chris the experience of bunking with my parents in their motor home on this trip, I booked the two of us a room in the Thunderbird Lodge—a motel on the reservation, right at the edge of the beautiful Canyon de Chelly. We decided to drive around and explore the area—something that had never occurred to me to do before. Every time we were about to head off on one of our adventures, Mom would approach us and insist that we be back before sundown. Otherwise, she assured us, something bad was going to happen. As the week rolled toward Friday, Mom became more and more adamant about this, and when Friday came she finally explained her concerns to Chris. Every Friday, when they get paid, the Indians drive to Gallup to buy liquor—there is no liquor for sale on the reservation. Then they get drunk and drive home. Because there is only one road to and from the reservation, a lot of people wind up getting killed in alcohol-induced car crashes if they are driving, or by being run over by drunk drivers if they are pedestrians. (This can happen any day of the week, but especially on Fridays.) This is extremely common, Mom explained—in fact, two of Mom’s sisters’ husbands had been driving together and had been killed in exactly this way, in an alcohol-related car accident on the way back to the reservation. Chris listened to Mom, his eyes getting wider and wider—he was very patient and polite. But the whole situation was a little surreal. I had brought this erudite white English boy to the reservation, where everyone was staring at him.

  Sometime much later Chris confessed that his visit to the reservation had been “both fascinating and terrifying, almost like being on another planet.” The landscape must have looked lunar to this boy who had grown up in the rolling countryside of Somerset, England, and even I feel a subtle attitude of guardedness and mistrust directed at me as an “outsider” whenever I am visiting the reservation. The extreme differences between Chris’s and my backgrounds strike me as almost comical now. And yet, in the realm of choreography and dance at least, the two of us seemed to make an excellent team.

  Seasoning the Guest List for a Spicy Evening

  WHEN HEATHER AND I were first dancing together she was the more seasoned dancer—but I was the more experienced cook. Over time we learned from each other and soon enough we had a well-balanced partnership both on the stage and in the kitchen. Our dancing was always all about passion and precision, but for the most part our cooking was a much more slapdash affair—a way to unwind and connect with friends in a casual setting.

  Over the years I have learned that a successful dinner party is as much about the personalities one mixes as it is about the edible ingredients one combines. An example that comes to mind is a not so long ago night when my dear friend Johnny Reinhold—the famous jeweler whom I first met during my Andy Warhol days—was coming for dinner. I decided to invite several of the ballet boys to the dinner. I thought this would make Johnny happy. (It did.) I also invited a mystery guest—of course the boys were very curious about whom this might be, but I refused to say.

  Luis and I were in the kitchen getting the dinner ready—skirt steak over arugula; rosemary-and-garlic potatoes; tomato, red onion, and blue cheese salad; and apple-cheddar crumble—when suddenly the living room fell silent. I walked out to see that Debbie Harry had arrived. The boys were flabbergasted.

  It was great to see Debbie and Johnny again, and to share our memories of life when Andy was alive. After dinner, as a spontaneous finale, all the ballet boys decided to take off their shirts. Everyone went away happy—well fed and well entertained. What more can a host hope for?

  Grilled Skirt Steak with Arugula

  ______

  SERVES 6

  THE MARINADE:

  ½ cup olive oil

  ¼ cup red wine vinegar

  5 cloves garlic, finely chopped

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon pepper

  THE SKIRT STEAK WITH ARUGULA:

  3 pounds skirt steak

  A couple bushels (metaphorically) arugula, washed and dried

  Olive oil

  Red wine vinegar

  Salt and pepper

  For the marinade, mix the olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Pour the mixture over the steak in a large bowl. Cover and let marinate for 1 to 2 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator. (If you refrigerate the meat, bring it to room temperature before cooking.)

  Get your large skillet or grill very hot and sear the steak for about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the heat and let it sit while you prepare your arugula by tossing it with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. It’s really not difficult, just keep tasting and adjusting as you go. Slice your steak into strips, cutting diagonally across the grain, and arrange the strips on a nice plate or platter. I like to place the arugula on top of the steak, right down the center.

  NOTE: This recipe is incredibly easy, and you can adjust the seasoning as you like. I have played around with adding Sazón (which you can buy in the international-food section of your market), soy sauce, jalapeños, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and other surprise ingredients. I also have been known to wrap the steak and arugula in a tortilla for a quick, delicious snack.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ______

  To Everything Turn, Turn, Turn

  What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

  —RICHARD BACH

  In August and September 2001 the whole NYCB company set off on a tour through Europe, where we were scheduled to dance first at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, then in Athens, and finally in Italy for the Parma Verdi Festival. This marked our first visit to Edinburgh, and we were all very excited to be in the land of fine ales—the moment we got there we hit the pubs. The audiences seemed equally excited to have the NYCB in their city. In Athens we danced for a crowd of five thousand in the ancient amphitheater the Herodeion, with the Acropolis beautifully lit, high on a hill behind us. I had danced “Rubies
” at the Acropolis with Heather years earlier, on a private tour, and as I got ready to partner Darci this time—Balanchine’s last ballerina—in the second movement of Symphony in C, the layers of history and symbolism seemed almost surreal.

  But for all the excitement and glamour of our earlier stops, it was our last stop, in Parma, that was by far the most memorable. It was there, while in the middle of an orchestra rehearsal of Peter’s Barber Violin Concerto with Darci, that I glanced offstage and noticed a few dancers crying. As soon as Darci and I finished the pas de deux, we exited the stage and went over to see what had happened. Monique Meunier told me, “They’ve attacked the Twin Towers in New York.” “They?” I thought. “Who are ‘they’?” When the rehearsal was over I remember almost running to the hotel, and as I left the theater I saw news crews already gathering at the stage door. We were the New York City Ballet—the namesake company of a great city that had been attacked by “them.” But who were they?

  What a tumultuous and emotional time that was for all of us who were so far from home and our loved ones. All of the dancers who had families were sent home first, and the company manager arranged for those of us who stayed in Italy to travel from one town to the next until our flights could be arranged. When I finally returned to New York, ten days after the towers went down, Heather, Chris, and Damian all picked me up at the airport. As we drove back over the Triboro Bridge I could see a cloud of smoke still rising from ground zero. It was chilling. We drove in silence to our apartment, and when I stepped out of the car onto the sidewalk the stench of torn metal and burning rubber crowded up against me. It was such a distinctive smell, clear and vibrant in an odd way, and I couldn’t help thinking of all of the dead souls that must be floating overhead, circling the skies above the city, looking for their families and for answers as to why this happened.