In the Grand tradition: Maria Grandy - y - Great Starts: A Tribute to Teachers Who Have Produced Outstanding Results - Interview

Dance Magazine, Dec, 1997 by Muriel Topaz

When I ask the Juilliard School's vivacious, energetic, feisty Maria Grandy what makes her unique as a dance teacher, she pauses for a beat, then says, "My positive attitude and my love of dance. I try to help dancers understand that dancing is joyful, and that they are fortunate to be doing this wonderful thing. I also emphasize that life is now, not later; live it every day at every level. A good class is part of the fun of living!"

It was not the answer one would expect. What about pointing your feet, jumping, and turning? That did come later in our conversation, but technique was not the first thing on Grandy's mind. "It is extremely important that students recognize that they are human beings as well as dancers," she says. "Even Balanchine and Graham had lovers, were interested in good food and companionship, were sensitive to nature, enjoyed travel. Being a dancer doesn't mean that you stop experiencing other things in life.

"Also important is having a dream, and the confidence to know that dreams can change to accommodate to reality. If you fail in one direction, you can succeed in another."

Grandy's own life is a case in point. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, studying with Nicholas Vasilieff, Monica Land (briefly), and Jacqueline Martin Schumacher. "What a combination!" she says. "From Mr. Vasilieff came movement, flow, Russian panache. Mrs. Schumacher provided careful technical training--the fine details and nuance."

At seventeen, Grandy wanted desperately to go to New York City but didn't have the financial means. In August 1955, the company she had read and dreamed about, New York City Ballet, came to perform in nearby Seattle. Grandy went to see them, of course. Armed only with total naivete and a pair of ballet slippers, she went backstage after the performance and asked if she could audition.

As luck would have it, NYCB had been hit with a series of injuries. Ballet mistress Vida Brown actually granted an audition, liked what she saw, and offered Grandy a short-term contract on the spot. Within three days, Grandy had left Portland, and for two glorious weeks she performed with the company in Chicago.

Of course, the Cinderella story didn't continue. It usually does not in real life, which is why our dreams need to be adjusted. At the end of the two weeks, Balanchine informed her that, while he liked her work, she simply did not have the correct body type for his company (no long legs, only five feet four and a half inches tall, and not really skinny). He would, of course, pay her fare back to Portland. In typical fashion, Grandy convinced him that it would be cheaper to take her to New York City with the company, and so he did. One week later, dreams adjusted, she was hired by the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.

Another dancer might look upon this as a misfortune. In the world according to the optimistic Grandy, it was a wonderful beginning. "I had no idea how fortunate I was," she says. "I had simply followed my star. I knew that I would dance someplace."

While at the Met, Grandy studied with Margaret Craske, a bit with Antony Tudor, and with Igor Schwezoff. Then she and Robert Joffrey discovered one another, and the course of her dancing life was changed forever. She adored Joffrey as teacher and artist; he loved her dancing and her intelligent way of working. She joined Robert Joffrey Theatre Ballet as a soloist. (It was early on, just one year after Joffrey's initial station-wagon tour.) The association continued throughout most of Grandy's career. She became ballet mistress for and assistant to Joffrey during his tenure with New York City Opera; she taught for many years at the Joffrey-affiliated school, the American Ballet Center; she became associated with the Joffrey 11 Dancers. Eventually she rose to become its artistic director after several years of being associate director working with Sally Brayley Bliss.

Grandy also did a stint in the ballet company of Radio City Music Hall. At one point in her career when she was dancing with the Brooklyn Ballet, she was so dissatisfied with the way rehearsals were run that she proposed to director Alan Banks that he let her rehearse the company. He agreed, and her career as a director and ballet mistress began.

At another juncture, Grandy again became restless and decided to study Labanotation. She enrolled in an intensive two-week course, became fascinated by the method, and went on to become a certified teacher and reconstructor; she now stages ballets of Joffrey, Massine, Tudor, and Norbert Vesak all over the world.

She was also an excellent student of notation. I know; I was her teacher. I was so impressed with her skills that I later asked her to do some guest teaching for me at the dance division of the Juilliard School, where I was director. She is now a full-time faculty member at Juilliard. Along the way, never forgetting her own advice about living fully, Grandy married entrepreneur Seymour Schorr, produced two lovely daughters, and is now the proud grandma of Baby Julia Silverman. She's a fine cook, a terrific gardener, a passionate bird-watcher, and a whiz on the tennis court.