Original Diamonds cavalier Jacques d’Amboise shows PNB soloist Jerome Tisserand how to properly woo a lady onstage.
To polish Pacific Northwest Ballet’s staging of Balanchine’s timeless Jewels (1967), artistic director Peter Boal called in the experts. He invited the very first interpreters of lead roles in the ballet to offer their guidance to his cast. Once stars of the New York City Ballet stage, these icons continue to shape the dance world as renowned educators and directors. Fortunately, cameras caught clips of them in action during their coaching sessions in Seattle. Jacques d’Amboise, who founded the National Dance Institute, Violette Verdy, who teaches ballet at Indiana University, and longtime Miami City Ballet director Edward Villella offered inspirational nuggets of wisdom for performing the pieces they helped define more than 40 years ago.
For Emeralds, the charming Verdy discusses dancers’ motivation and the origin of movements (plus we get to see a nice clip of the beautiful Carla Körbes in motion!):
During his coaching session on Rubies, Villella stresses the importance of making sure the movement expresses Balanchine’s signature style:
