Allegra Kent

What do you think Balanchine liked about your dancing? Or you?
It’s probably what I like about Janie and so many other people: peculiarities, demonic energy, and of course, spirit. Maybe a natural grace combined with a natural ungracefulness? Maybe it was my spirit in a monster part that he liked. I threw myself in being a Firebird monster. I think he could see passion and I was lucky I was there. I’m not sure what he saw. I thought I was good. I was 15. And I also knew I had a lot to learn, an encyclopedia—the old kind.

Not digital.
No. When we were on tour, almost everyone in the company went sightseeing, I went to ballet class. So he saw dedication. Maria was there, Tanny was there. About three other people were there. [Laughs] I went sightseeing later.

Who is presenting your Dance Magazine award?
Jacques [d’Amboise], my first partner in adagio class. He was swashbuckling. And he didn’t seem to mind that my hair looked a bit disheveled in adagio class. It’s hard to have neat hair! Jacques was great.

Why did you dance well together?
Chemistry. It’s like in Nutcracker-—you get a husband in the first act, but when the curtain goes down… No, it’s admiration, and you can create a romantic fantasy, and as Fellini said, dancing is like lace. I loved dancing Scotch Symphony with him. We did it with the catch, which has since been taken out; it’s too bad. It’s an easy catch. We like tosses. We must toss our ballerinas high and always catch them. Or have a few catchers in the rye. There’s lots of rye in Russia. [Cracks up]

It drives me crazy to watch one ballet you made famous—Bugaku—because I don’t feel like I’ve ever seen it properly performed.
It’s a mix of things. It’s, of course, inward and outward simultaneously. And then what is it? It’s innocent and yet it’s sensual. Things like that weren’t necessarily seen onstage. Actually, look at a développé à la seconde. [With one arm straightened, she draws the other intoretire and then stretches it out to the side.] Is that not one of the most thrilling things? The body in ballet is beautiful. And so unreal. The whole idea of pointe shoes. How about that?

Do you still wear them in class?
No. At night.

In your dreams?
[She laughs approvingly.]

I’m onto you now. Do you have dreams where you’ve danced?
Oh, yes. Dreaming is good. My pirouettes in dreams are fantastic.… I think the Greek gods would have wanted to be on pointe. No, let’s forget that.

What didn’t you dance that you wanted to? Liebeslieder Walzer?
Yes.

And didn’t you tell Balanchine, “No—I’m too busy,” when he asked you to do it?
Oh, why did I do that? Well, I was overwhelmed. We can’t look back. We have to look at this moment. And today is beautiful.

Why did you write Once a Dancer…?
I was writing it more for myself in a way, to find out where I’d been. And to be excited about that again. I was happy that a lot of people liked it. Why not? It’s a story. And everyone has such a different story. I’m so glad that University of Florida is reissuing this book. I was quite thrilled. It took me a long time to write it because I wrote it in longhand and then I put it away and then I brought it out which is sometimes a good thing to do. It’s my ostrich egg. It took a long time to hatch! [Laughs]

How did it help you to have it percolate in that way?
Well, my career, of course, was over and I wanted to revisit it and I was trying to make my sentences pirouette and put a little dance into what I wrote. It was challenging. But it was also destination.

You changed your first name from Iris to Allegra. Did you feel like you had to become a different person?
No! It was easy. Everybody has changed their name.

I haven’t.
Well, that’s terrific. Minerva changed it. Was it Athena and then Minerva? My grandparents changed their name when they came to this country. Some people really love their background, but I have no idea what my background is because I just wonder how my relatives got through the middle ages. I hate cold water.

Speaking of water, do you still swim?
I like really warm water. I’m not doing that. But I like my water exercises that I invented. They had a certain amount of humor.

How long have you been teaching ballet at Barnard?
I think I’ve been teaching there for seven years. [The students are] at Barnard and Columbia because they want education, but they also want to dance, so I don’t have the responsibility of the conservatory—it’s different but it’s pure ballet. It’s a place where they can dance. And that’s what they want to do even at 10am on a Friday morning, which is a very tiring moment for the students of this university. I love them. There I am at Barnard, and they have white geraniums outside and magnolia trees. It’s wonderful and it’s a different world.

Once a Dancer…(University Press of Florida, $22.95) is out now; the Dance Magazine Awards are Mon 9 at Florence Gould Hall.

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