Dance to the Piper by Agnes de Mille

Author:Agnes de Mille
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590179093
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2015-10-27T04:00:00+00:00

17. PARIS — BRUSSELS — LONDON

IN THE spring before Flying Colors when I had waved off Madame Argentina, she had said to me, “American and Spanish dancing have one characteristic in common—rhythm. You must find the American rhythm and develop it as I have developed the Spanish rhythm.” She repeated this suggestion to Martha Graham and several others. It was a good, quotable slogan.

Arnold Meckel, Argentina’s manager, urged me to allow him to present me in Paris since concerts there cost one fifth as much as New York appearances. “You realize, I have no money?” I said. “There isn’t any moving-picture money behind me.” But Meckel hastened to protest. He was not interested in money. He was interested only in my future, which he assured me was something he believed in strongly.

This was the autumn of 1932. Mother’s income had dwindled to half, what with the depression and mismanagement by the trustees of her fund. There was indeed no money behind me; I was speaking the truth. Although I was getting a small allowance from Pop, it was totally inadequate to finance theatrical ventures. No one ever spontaneously suspected that the de Mille resources were not buying me a professional footing and protecting me every step of the way. My confreres were wary and only very slowly grew to recognize our common plight. I, therefore, could make use of none of the dodges and cuts of other professionals and I was charged double for everything. Living within the aura of wealth and yet so powerless I came to find extremely galling.

Mother managed the concert costs by giving up all luxuries, thenceforth, for life, taxis, lower berths, good theater tickets, good restaurants, everything but the cheapest clothes.

My brother-in-law, Bernard Fineman, lent me the thousand dollars for my share of the trip and Mother, having sublet her apartment, took the gamble.

The exact circumstances of our departure, tourist class on the Ile de France, were quite typical of all such expeditions. I quote from Mother’s diary:

. . . From midnight until 5:30 A.M.—and again at 7:00—I labored at moving my Lares and Penates out of accustomed places into one closet, and then—a sip of tea; a last visit to the bank; back to get hand luggage and Mildred (our maid) who’d never seen a big boat and who in the excitement promptly shut her thumb in a door, I dashing back for a bandage; a last anguished look at my unbelievably messed-up home—and off in a taxi to Pier 57—bandaging Mildred en route, worrying about Agnes who had taken the L to Gimbel’s to pick up her new hat; remembering a hundred previously forgotten chores and arriving at last in the tourist end of the Ile de France, a few minutes before the “all ashore” signal; the safe arrival of Agnes later; the scrambled meeting and missing of friends; last injunctions; the discovery that I had only a minute in which to send a wire to Margaret; my race to première Classe and the nice officer who dashed down the last gangplank with my telegram and $2.

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