Rudi and the Fountain

 

 

There are those moments that last forever in the mind. They seem so outlandish that the absurdity makes me smile, and we recognize that something powerful passes between certain souls that will connect them for eternity in a moment of pure childish, emotional … mayhem.

Rudolf Nureyev was known for untold stories of outlandish behavior that seemed to spring out of him from an artesian well of unlimited superciliousness.

Because many may not know what that word means, I put a definition in here because Rudi was nothing if not unique as an individual, through and through.

Supercilious means to express through contempt. It is a person who shows arrogant superiority and disdain for those that one feels are … inferior or unworthy.

Nureyev probably felt that way around most people. (Not necessarily dancers but more normal human beings.)
When he was younger, his talent was so extraordinary that most would allow him to get away with it. That supercilious behavior, of course!
His rudeness was renowned in the ballet world.
In that ballet world … he tried to control his disdain because he understood that all dancers are tribe. But some (in his mind) were deemed less than worthy, and he would obviously ignore them and give them no heed.

The level of personal self-confidence that is required to be at the top of the ballet world, in a place where all the ego games are consistently being played out, requires a particular skill to maintain status, stature, and significance.
His way to move in that world was with a haughty arrogance. And that was at the root of his power on stage.

His body was not perfect for ballet, but his mind had a type of self-discipline that could force his body to comply with the incessant demands of his art.
What he had was a type of drive and determination that was unmatched (at that time).
He embraced ballet as his personal … creed.
To him, ballet was his religion.
It was his way to touch … not god, but to touch the God … within himself.
While I am not remotely of his caliber, what we shared as an unspoken understanding … was that ballet … was all we cared about.
It was our lover. A lover that never wavered in its passion and a lover that would never leave us.
As long as we were completely devoted to it, He/She would allow us to feel beyond our humanness and into those places that existed within our soul that understood that we are all energy … if … we could just find the wings that unfolded from a deep plie. Combine it with the joy from our heart, and allow them both to show the power of our passion as we showed that humanity can … fly!
We understood that while dance moved us through our body, it was more than that.

Dance was a doorway that allowed us to tap into the deeper truth that dance … must first … be understood within the soul.
And when the mind understands something … that the soul has taught our human condition, then it can teach it … to the body.

We understood that dance is a feeling that is far beyond the shallow expressions of words. It is deeper than the pain we feel; it is the doorway to express the raw, authentic passion that drives life itself.
He taught me that humanity is messy, petulant, demanding, and insolent. He embraced all those qualities within him and celebrated them through his dance.

Some dance to be famous, beautiful, powerful, and inspiring.
He showed me that to be a “God,” one must first embrace all that it is to be … human.
He taught me that if you cannot find the unique pleasure in being absurd, then you still do not yet understand the deep gift that it is to be alive.
I would watch him, and to me … he demonstrated that we do not dance to become a character; we dance to allow that character to appear in this reality fully.
To him, dance was the magic that created new life and allowed old lives to reappear and live … once again … through us.
Nureyev taught me that we do not dance to get something from it, but we offer up our body and soul as a living sacrifice to it.
That is true love!
And to him, that was the only way to find a life that would embody true happiness.
To him, most of humanity pretended to be happy, but they had traded comfort … for love, convenience … for a shallow life, and they were destined to embody a life of unhappiness rather than risk it all for the deepest love of all.
He and I needed to dance like we needed air to breathe.

We saw it in each other’s eyes. We had a strong telepathic connection that showed itself frequently in rehearsals when we needed to dance together.

We had an unspoken understanding that continues to carry me through this life even now and even though he is no longer in a physical body.
I believe him to be a guide and an angel to many artists as he continues to be a master in the realms of energy, passion, and dance.
He hated mediocrity. He preferred souls that would take risks and try.
I intuitively knew that. But at that moment in Kennedy Center (as I was about to perform the Snow section of his Nutcracker), when he decided to change a very difficult turning sequence into something much more difficult than it was, to begin with. I had to say, “No!”
But I was afraid.
I stopped the magic at that moment from happening.
I limited myself, and perhaps a profound moment had passed me by.

Instantly he turned into a raging maniac!

He said, “I am the choreographer, and you will do what I tell you to do!”

Angrily, my response was, “Rudi, my family is in the audience! The reviewers are in the audience! It is opening night! We have been through a huge amount of trauma in New York. If you had asked me to practice this two weeks ago, I would be willing to give it a shot. But I don’t want to fall on my ass in Kennedy Center! So, I am not doing it! Not now! Not without some practice! You are asking me to make a major change just before I am to go on stage! It is not fair!”
I could only see later that I was protecting my own ego.

That is when he started throwing things backstage and walked away.
The other dancer doing the joint solo position in Snow with me comes over and asks, “Are you going to do it … this new way, or are you doing it … the old way?”

I look at her and say, “I am doing it the way we rehearsed it! How about you!”

She smiles and nods, “Then that is what I am doing also!”

So, we went out and did it the way we had rehearsed it, and while we were dancing, Rudi is storming around backstage. He is clearly, pissed off!

When he is in that type of mood, we all would give him a wide berth. No one wants to be on the receiving end of his wrath in such tirades.

After the performance, I get undressed slowly because I don’t want to bump into him.

I am exhausted. Such emotional moments take a toll on me as I don’t really enjoy conflict, but I know that Rudi sort of relishes those explosive moments as they are the release valve for all that passion inside him that is constantly seeking a way out.
By the time I am leaving, everyone else is gone.
As I leave the stage door, there are not even any fans waiting for autographs from Rudi, and all seems quiet.
I am walking past the fountains at Kennedy Center, thinking about the argument and wondering if I did the right thing. Feeling my own fear and doubt creeping in.

When I suddenly hear running footsteps behind me.

I think, “Oh shit! I am about to be robbed! Dammit!! I am not supposed to be walking alone!”

Just when I think that I am going to have to defend myself against an attacker, I am picked up and dumped into the fountains.

Soaking wet, startled, and in shock, I turn to see Rudi standing there with his hands on his hips, glaring at me!

Speechless, with my mouth open, I don’t know what to say.
He says to me with defiant determination and assured righteousness, “There! Now are you going to do what I say!”
I am now pissed myself, and I say, “No!”

He then jumps in the water in his black leather outfit and sits down in front of me, and starts splashing me like you do when you are kids playing in the pool with a water fight game. I splash him back, and we are now knee-deep, running around splashing each other until we are finally laughing and out of breath.

Satisfied with generating an effective moment that demonstrates his originality and wit, he says to me, “You are the most difficult, headstrong, willful young dancer I have ever encountered. Who died and made you God!”

I responded back, “Well, it takes one to know one! You are the most arrogant, stubborn, difficult Russian person I have ever met in my life! And you do think you are some sort of God!”

He laughed and said, “Didn’t you hear? I am a God! And you will do what I say!”

I respond, “NO! Not when you are asking the impossible, and your personal (in the moment) predilection could make me look like an idiot!”
He smiled, saying calmly with a glint in his eyes, “Sometimes those are the moments when something magical can happen. Don’t you understand that? Directors will try to put you in a box. Ballet mistresses will try to put you in a box. Your desire to be perfect keeps you in that box. Did you ever think to take the control back? Once they know that you will stay in that box, then they have total control over you. Do you want to spend your life in that box? Do you want to live a life where others can just pick you up and move you around the way they want? Don’t you see … to be great, you must get out of that box. You must defy the projection they have on you. You must become more than the box that they see. You must defy the odds. You must take risks when you can. You must supersede who and what they think you are. If you want to stay a corps de ballet dancer your whole life … just stay in line and stay in that box.
If you want to be remembered … never stop risking and leaning into those edges when they are offered up to you.

That is when I understood how he uses chaos to promote authenticity and give the Goddess of Dance a doorway into our souls.
He lived for those moments.
He would defy the odds and the projections … and labels that others … would try to use to tell him that he was old and washed up.
Dance was his muse, and he would listen to her until the end of this life and truly beyond this life.

He would be remembered forever for his passion for dance.
That spirit inside him was proving already to be stronger than his body.

He would alter choreography to suit his aging body and move towards movements and steps that allowed him to continue performing.

Even then, his jumps were smaller, and he was doing more petite allegro rather than huge jumps. He was doing more small fancy footwork rather than difficult big sequences. He knew his body was slowly failing, but he would never stop dancing.

At that moment, I admired him in a way that might seem a bit odd. I admired the spirit that was a fire inside him.

I will always remember his entrance into the second act of Giselle as he searches for the grave of Giselle in his grief. I will remember his haunted eyes and the depth of feeling that he could convey.

But I also could see a person that lived deeply and exclusively in a world of dance, and he did not know how to transition out of it into anything else.

At that moment, I recognized that he did not want to… either.

But also, in that moment, I could feel that he was teaching me that this was not to be my destiny.

I knew that I would have to find the grace to exit at the proper time. I knew that I wanted to retire at the top rather than at the bottom. I did not want to have some pity me and my dancing. I wanted to go on my own terms.

And I knew that I did have other talents and that I could discover ways to share that deep understanding that I learned from dance in other ways.
I knew that this was my true purpose. I knew that I had an ability to express through words … the feelings that I experienced in the many facets of my life.

I could feel that I am a spiritual being having a human experience. I knew that while Rudi would forever be a god, I was more of a … mystic poet.

I knew that no matter how long I lived that the driving part of my being and the anchor of my soul into this reality was ballet, dance, movement, rhythm, music, and art.

I knew that just because I would eventually stop being a ballet dancer does not mean the ballerina in me would die. Such a powerful energy will never die … it just changes form.

All of life to me is a dance. All my magical experiences are a beautiful ballet.

Some of my excursions into this watery world were of a spiritual nature. Some were to learn how to reconnect past selves from past lives into the awareness of this one. Some dances were to understand the sexual nature of my own being. Some dances were to show others that they, too … can dance.

I have danced with my fingers on the bodies of exhausted souls through massage as they were seeking healing, relief from pain, and to reconnect to the parts within them that really mattered.

I have been the vehicle for others to see that magic still does exist in this reality. One just needs to know where to look.
I have been a guide through the maze of complex emotions and shown others that what they fear … is hiding who they truly are.
I am opening others (and those that are willing) to the beauty of this life that surrounds them … right now.

And I continue to feel the connection that I shared with Rudolf Nureyev. Even though those moments were brief and fleeting, they were profound and transformative.

That is when you know you are in the presence of a living God. That through one touch, one sentence, one moment of being thrown into a fountain at the Kennedy Center, one unfiltered moment of true authenticity, that we can be forever changed.

Rudi changed me. He taught me things that no one else could have possibly taught me. He continues to be one of my greatest coaches to this day.

While Eva Evdokimova told me that I was a diamond in the rough and that I needed a coach to move toward the potential that I held inside.
I did not understand that the coaches I was seeking were not ballet coaches but those who could show me myself through the tools, techniques, and passions that I felt through dance.
Dance is, after all … the essence of all life.
Toni Lander would not be my ballet coach or teacher, but she showed me through her authentic expression in this life that the processes of this life can and will be brutal. She showed me that in moments … we will not be our best or highest self. But that even when we are our worst self, that we all will have to embrace all the parts that we are inside and outside.

Both Rudi and Toni taught me that you can be seen as a god or goddess by some, but there will be a special few that will be gifted to see our humanness in a light that is unfiltered by our own personal projections.
They both showed me that even in such a harsh light … that we are still beautiful, powerful, and radiant. That we can be amazingly bright when we allow our brokenness to be seen.
We are all fragile raku pots that will be cracked by the heat of this life.
They reminded me that everyone has a limited amount of time in this reality.
But, for that time that we are given, we should unapologetically live it fully and without worrying about what others think.
They taught me that even broken, we can be reflecting the light we are … in amazingly beautiful ways.
Even though our body is fragile and will break under the onslaught of the wounding’s, traumas, and challenges of this life … we should never stop giving our gifts to others.

Toni gave her gifts right up to the end.
So did Nureyev.
They are the proof that even as one is dying … that the soul can find a way to give everything it has.

The sound of such a sacrifice to Terpsichore does not go unnoticed.
Such a song has a type of sound that is the cry for life to exist, the demand of the soul to soar, and the passion that life requires from all of us to … dance.
~Suzanne Wagner~