Every Step You Take (25 page)

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

—R
ICHARD
B
ACH

I
n 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.

I slept badly that night, listening to the warplanes flying their grim patrols. Was this going to be our way of life from now on? Would we ever catch the terrorists who had killed our innocent men and women? Would we ever regain our confidence as New Yorkers, or were we doomed to carry a permanent burden of vulnerability forward into our future?

The feeling of confusion and vulnerability that enveloped New York City during that fall of 2001 was echoed by an ominous and brooding quality in my personal life. Everything seemed to be shifting for Chris and for me, and it was not clear exactly where we would each land. Chris was getting a lot of work outside the ballet world—he had done some work in the film industry, and he had just landed his first Broadway show,
Sweet Smell of Success
, starring John Lithgow, which was in Chicago for its pre-Broadway run. This was a big deal, and he was away a lot. Because of this, and because our professional responsibilities had the two of us moving in different directions, we were seeing even less of each other than usual. Despite this, we had decided to move into a fancy new apartment in a brand-new building at Twenty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue. When the Christmas season rolled around, I was sitting alone in our new New York apartment and Chris was out in Chicago. Our intermittent telephone conversations were often both tense and brief.

Sometime before New Year's, in one of these telephone conversations, Chris said he had something he wanted to discuss with me, but he wanted to do it in person. My antennae went up immediately. This sounded like classic prelude-to-a-breakup to me—but no one had ever broken up with me before, so I was like,
what
?! I couldn't believe it. I asked him outright, on the spot. I said, “What are you doing? Are you breaking up with me? Over the phone?” He said, “No, no, no, let's discuss this when I get home in a couple of days.” So I hung up and went out to dinner with our mutual friend the dancer Jason Fowler, and tried to push the matter out of my mind.

When I got home a few hours later I had a message on my answering machine from a woman who was one of Chris's best friends: “Oh my God, I am so sorry that you guys have broken up. If you need to talk please call me.” I was shocked, angry, hurt—but most of all humiliated. This was embarrassing—after all, I was an established principal dancer! And I had just been dumped—via voice mail, by my boyfriend's friend, no less. I was stunned. I erased the awful message and called Chris immediately and read him the riot act. He was horrified, too. Basically his best friend had broken up with me for him, by accident. It was a bumbling mistake. But there it was. And since I have been the author of some pretty poorly executed good-byes in my day, it seemed only fair to describe a time when the tables were turned on me.

In retrospect, I can see that during much of the six years that Chris and I were together I was confused, and often felt as if our connection was more of a professional collaboration than a real relationship. It was hard to figure out exactly what we were to each other, and by the time we split up I think I was more humiliated by the way it had happened than I was heartbroken. I think Chris was also confused about our relationship, and unsure of how to proceed. He had met a lot of people in New York over the years, and he was very talented and driven. He probably began to realize that it's a great, big world and that he didn't have to be locked down with his first serious boyfriend. He explained to me later that he just didn't know how to break up with me, and I can certainly understand this—I had felt the same way at times with Ulrik.

Looking back on that uncomfortable period of my life, I have to admit that I didn't handle my first experience as a dumpee with much grace. I was pretty bitchy to Chris for a while—more out of wounded pride than anything else. When he called me and said, “Look, we really have to talk about this,” I said, “There's nothing to talk about.” And I hung up. In another phone conversation I announced, like the good angry, scorned Navajo brave that I was, “I curse your next relationship!” He said, “You can't do that.” And I said, “Oh yes, I can”—and hung up.

While the end of our romance may not have been heartbreaking for either Chris or me in the long run, it certainly was awkward on several fronts in the short term. For one thing we had just moved into this big, expensive apartment; Chris had bought the apartment with the money from all of the ballets and shows that he was doing, but I owned almost everything in the apartment. Then there was the awkward fact that Chris was starting a new ballet with Wendy and me the following week, and so we knew we would be spending a lot of time in the studio together. The ballet was
Morphoses
, a very clever work that Chris choreographed on me, Wendy, Damian, and Alexandra Ansanelli. It was just the four of us in a studio with Chris for a month and a half before the premiere in June 2002, all of which was very uncomfortable for me at first. But I respected Chris's choreography enormously, and I believe he respected my gifts as a dancer and collaborator—as I've said, it can be hard, but you have to leave your problems outside the studio. Thank God, Chris and I were always able to stay professional when it came to our art.

As it turned out, Chris and I ended up working together on four ballets after the breakup:
Morphoses
,
Liturgy
,
Shambards
, and
After the Rain
. They were all beautiful ballets; in fact, they encompass some of our most interesting work.
Liturgy
, another pas de deux for Wendy and me, was set to a spectacularly beautiful piece of music by Arvo Pärt; the partnering was complex and the music difficult to count, but the result was amazing—sort of like dancing in space. I truly believe we were moving the art of partnering forward, exploring an entirely new realm of expression and connection through movement and music. One of my most unearthly memories is of performing
Liturgy
with Wendy in Moscow, on the severely raked stage of the Bolshoi theater. The audience loved the ballet, and when I exited the theater and looked up at the Kremlin I was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of their city.

After
Liturgy
, Chris made
Shambards
, a beautiful ballet with Miranda Weese and me, set to a score commissioned from composer James MacMillan; and then, finally, the very beautiful
After the Rain
. This was the last ballet Chris choreographed on Wendy and me, and it premiered in January 2005, just six months before I retired. I remember being in the rehearsal studio one day when we were first working on
After the Rain
, which was again set to music by Arvo Pärt, and when the choreography seemed to keep coming out just like that of
Liturgy
, Chris got very frustrated. He called an end to our rehearsal and we all left. The next day we came in and he said, “Wendy, take your hair down and take your pointe shoes off.” She was a little nervous, and she said, “I've never done that before. Can I wear my ballet slippers?” Chris said yes, okay. I had done modern ballet before, so I suggested, “I can take my shoes off.” I didn't know where Chris was going, but this turned out to be the beginning of a very new and inventive pas de deux—one of the most difficult and most beautiful pas de deux I ever danced. The ballet opens with three couples in unitards, dancing against a beautiful backdrop with everything looking well lit and sleek, but with the ominous feeling of an approaching storm. When Wendy and I go offstage, the music begins to get wilder and wilder as the storm hits, and by the time we run back on, the storm has passed and everything has changed. Wendy has let her hair down and she is in a pink leotard. I have taken my shoes off and am wearing only slacks. All of a sudden an amazing early-morning light suffuses everything, and we are dancing in a new way in a new world—after the rain. It was unexpected and fresh and stunning.

Chris is a very gifted choreographer, but perhaps the greatest gift I received from working with him was the friendship and partnership that I found with Wendy. I have mentioned that I always tell my students at the school that as a dancer you must believe in every step and every gesture that you make, or you will never reach the audience. Wendy is the epitome of this—she believes in every nanosecond of every step and gesture. She is one of the hardest working ballerinas of all time, and certainly one of America's finest ever. What was especially exciting and profound about dancing with Wendy was that we could always stretch each other's range, meeting each other anywhere we went. The ideas, the movement, the shapes she could make were amazing. I could manipulate her body with infinitely different subtleties of movement, and she would sculpt her body in response, bringing beauty and magic to every moment of our partnership, beat by beat. We always danced for and with each other, and in the process it was as if we merged and became one soul. Our steps were an extension of the love we felt for each other, for our art, for what we believed in. I truly believe our partnership was a gift to each of us, and that we helped bring the pas de deux into this century. I wish that life worked in a way that would allow the two of us to keep dancing with each other for centuries to come. Even now whenever I speak to her I tell her, “You know I loves ya.” Wendy Whelan—the Hardest Working American Ballerina. This should be shouted from the rooftops, and she deserves to be carried down Broadway every day on a float to the theater. I still miss those moments with her, but I will never forget them.

My professional life continued to thrive in the aftermath of my breakup with Chris, but I personally had been badly shaken by what happened between Chris and me, and I wasn't that interested in another serious long-term affair. To be honest, I wasn't even that interested in dating at all. I was working so hard as a dancer—and the process takes a lot more out of you as you get older. Often I would go to the house in Connecticut on the weekends just to collapse and recoup. That spring, when I had some time off, my friend Jason and I thought we really should try to have some fun, so we decided to go on a Gay Holiday. We just drove through Texas, stopping at all the gay bars in Houston and Austin. Next we drove to Dallas to visit Jason's parents, and then we flew back to New York. The whole thing was kind of scary—scary, and exhausting.

During this post-Chris period I had a string of halfhearted dating blunders, similar to the list of mistakes I had dated during my first “love sabbatical”—this time it was the Bartender, the Architect, the Doctor, the Agent, the Narcoleptic (was I really
that
boring?), and the Catholic. The Catholic was the last of these ill-suited suitors, as well as the last straw for me. He was a big, handsome guy who would come watch me dance and then take me out to dinner—over and over. Like an idiot I stuck around, until the night he took me to Peter Luger's in Brooklyn for my birthday. We're sitting there, having dinner; they bring me my cake; everybody sings; and as he tucks into his cake, the Catholic tells me he is having a tough time because he is torn between me and a flight attendant—oh, and a guy he's been breaking up with for six months.