Dancing with Herman Jiesamfoek

 

I am standing backstage getting ready to go on with 16 other couples to dance the Waltz of the Flowers, in Rudolf Nureyev’s production of Nutcracker. There is a flurry of fast costume changes, and everyone is rushing.
We were in one of those moments when a show feels very stressful and hard. This show was feeling that way because of Rudi’s very grumpy and demanding attitude that evening.

And that strain was about to work itself into the backstage dramas that occasionally happen during a performance.

There are wonderful moments when partnerships just go so amazingly smoothly. Dancing with Herman Jiesamfoek in the Berlin Ballet was one of them. He was born and spent part of his childhood in Suriname South American. The child of mixed race parents (father descended from escaped Jamaican slaves and native South American Indians), and his mother a mixture of Asian (mostly Javanese and Hindi, with the native blood lines thrown in for good measure). The end result was a beautifully rich cultural blend that made Herman very tall, stately, he had gorgeous coco colored skin, every inch of him was solid muscle, he had a jawline that might terrify you if you came across him in a dark alley. But he was a total sweetheart, through and through.
At a young age he was given the opportunity to go to Holland to boarding school and expand his dancing skills and abilities there.
In Suriname they speak a modified form of Dutch, but it has the lilt and rhythm of Afrikaans. While both have Dutch as a base for certain words, Suriname was a Dutch colony, so Dutch is the official language, even though it has been influenced by the Asian settlers that also arrived to help colonize the land.
Herman was very tall. Probably about 6 ft 3 in. I say that because I am 5 ft 10 in (very tall for a ballerina in my generation), and when I am on point … you have to add 5 inches to my height. That makes me about 6 ft 3 inches and we seemed (in photos) approximately the same height if I was on point.
And Herman was so very strong. Solid but with a graceful ease and princely vibe. He appeared so very striking on stage. It was an honor to dance with him in many roles, on and off stage.
He was a meticulous partner, and few things ever went wrong on stage. Yet, there are a few moments that stand out as memorable. This is one of them.
All of them were not fully his fault.
We were performing Rudolf Nureyev’s Nutcracker, and Herman was doing the Russian dance (which in Berlin was couples dancing with each other), and after this section, there is a very quick change for anyone that had to come from the Russian Dance into the Waltz of the Flowers section. It is a difficult change because you have to also take Russian Boots off and change into ballet shoes, pants come off and tights go on. Because of this fast transition, we had a quick-change booth backstage for this moment, just off the wings.

Rudi, always is rushing around backstage himself because he is watching his choreography and lighting, while also dancing the lead role. Part of his contract was to always have a massage therapist with him to loosen him up as his aging body was cramping and time was catching up with him.

Being the massage therapist for Rudi was an exercise in restraint. Rudi was terribly demanding, not in the best of moods often, and that required the massage therapist to follow him from wing to wing and pretty much know where he would enter and where he would exit. Add to that that this massage therapist was hired by the Berlin Ballet and really did not know much about our world and let’s just say that at times, problems happened!
This particular performance, Rudi was being belligerent to the max, and was having a particularly emotionally challenging day. We were hearing him yelling at the massage therapist throughout the show and knew to stay out of his way.

But in the quick change, there was barely going to be enough time to do the switch and to get costumed and shoes on. Herman was rushing in the darkness backstage, and as he left the quick-change booth, the switch from light (of the booth) to the darkness of the wings backstage makes everyone temporarily … a bit blind. And as he is running to get to me, he slams into the massage therapist accidently.

The next thing I know is that the massage therapist is throwing a punch right at Herman’s face, and I am suddenly watching a knock down drag out fight happening just as the Waltz of the Flowers music is beginning.

The good news is that the short couples go out first in a line of bourrées en pointe that flow gracefully in with their men behind them supporting them ever so slightly to make the pounding of the feet less painful.

I always felt bad for the short women at the beginning because they had the longest way to go. I got to come on at the end and only had about a minute of bourrées to do.

But now, my partner is on the ground grappling with the massage therapist and let’s just say tempers flared.

I go running over just as Herman is standing up preparing to throw a punch and I jump in-between the two of them and I say, “Stop fighting! We don’t have time for this we have to go on NOW! STOP IT!”
Instantly the fight stops, and I grab Herman’s hand and drag him over to the entrance just in time. Herman’s hand is bleeding. He has a cut on his lip, his hair is a mess, somehow, my shin is bleeding, but I don’t remember why or how. I think I might have tripped or bumped into something backstage trying to get to both of them to stop them from fighting.

None of that matters now because we have to go onstage.

As I do the bourrées out, Herman is grabbing my waist … hard and squeezing with his fingers. The anger and adrenaline still clearly impacting him emotionally.
I tell him to calm down and take a few breaths. At this point we are still at the back of the stage, and it is filled with 16 couples, so it is easy to not be seen.
We start the pas de deux and he is lifting me up and down like I am a sack of potatoes being thrown over his shoulders.

I keep smiling and softly try to say to him, “Calm down, let it go, I am a woman not a sack of potatoes!”

About halfway through he begins to calm down and eventually he manages to regain control over his emotional state.

When we finally are done, I go to the place backstage where there is water and towels backstage. I wet a few rags and come back to gently wipe his face and see that his lip is blue and he has a bump on his forehead that is a lovely shade of purple.

I smiled and said, “You did good! … Mohamad Ali would be proud!”

That is when I finally got a wry smile out of him.

It was very rare for him to lose his temper. I think that was the only time that I saw him totally loose it and that punches flew.

He was exhausted, stressed, irritated, but he managed to stammer out, “I ran full into him as he was running after Rudi, We were both running and did not see each other.
As Herman was taller, bigger, and had more muscular power, he leveled that guy. Herman immediately said, “I am so sorry! I did not see you at all, I was blinded by the darkness coming out of the quick-change booth!”

But that was when the guy threw the first punch! Then it was a free-for-all. Negotiations go out the window in a brawl.

Fortunately, Herman did not get into trouble. After all, the dancers saw what happened.
But it was unfortunate for the massage therapist.
We never saw him again. Seemed that the fight cost him getting to Rudi in time to do what he promised in helping him uncramp from a variation, and one failure is all it ever took with Nureyev.
I can still see Herman’s bloody lip and bruised forehead in the glow of the backstage footlights.
I was glad that it seemed that egos took the worst brunt of the fight.
We all have the saying, “Temperamental Artists” for a very good reason.

~Suzanne Wagner