I Was a Dancer

Jacques d'Amboise

In this spirited memoir, Jacques d'Amboise, one of America's most celebrated classical dancers, and former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet for more than three decades, tells the story of his life in dance, and of America's most renowned and admired dance companies. He writes of his mother dragging her son and daughter to ballet class. We see him, a neighborhood tough, on the streets, fighting with neighborhood gangs, and taking ten classes a week at the School of American Ballet; being taught by Balanchine and other great teachers. We meet Balanchine's succession of ballerina muses who inspired him to near-obsessive passion, dancers with whom d'Amboise partnered; of going to Hollywood and being offered a long-term contract at MGM; and of the moment when he realizes his dancing career is over and he begins a new life teaching children all over the world about the arts...