Always a dancer… - ballerina Allegra Kent - Interview

Interview, March, 1997 by Robert Gottlieb

AK: I've been very distracted recently.

RG: Well, you keep doing these things like writing books and getting married, and that will distract a person.

AK: I'm focused enough to know that the first thing I should do almost every day is go swim. That's something I'm really proud of, my water exercises. Because I was twenty years ahead of the time when I published my exercise book, Allegra Kent's Water Beauty Book [in 1976]. Of course, when people say I was twenty years ahead, I say, "Twenty years ahead? The ancient Greeks were training this way for battle in the Mediterranean pond." And today, when I go into one of these little delicatessens carrying my string of water wings, people get very interested in them. Even Philip Roth has begged me for extra water wings, which I sent to him.

RG: Just don't marry him.

AK: I'm married already.

RG: Exactly. So you swim every day -

AK: And I go to ballet class, and then I'm set.

RG: What about walking?

AK: Walking! Well, I don't know. Walking is not my favorite exercise, although of course you have to walk. You have to walk through museums. You cannot swim through a museum, because they don't have water.

RG: It's so unfortunate. Unless there's a Titanic Museum.

AK: Oh, my gosh - there's someone who went down on both the Titanic and the Britannic, and survived both. What luck!

RG: Well, luck is Important for surviving a shipwreck. But it takes more than luck to achieve a long, amazing career like yours. Talent Isn't enough. Hard work isn't enough. Beauty isn't enough. You also need -

AK: You need all of those.

RG: Determination.

AK: Yes, plus a kind of stability to weather the ups and downs, because they do happen. Performances differ from one day to the next.

RG: That's true about everything in life, isn't it?

AK: Yes - there's no guarantee about the future in any part of your life.

RG: When you're young, you don't know that. You just assume everything will keep going, getting better and better.

AK: That's true.

RG: But look how you've turned out as a person.

AK: I've been very lucky. But I had to work very hard to try to overcome a lot of my problems, which got in the way of my dancing.

RG: On the other hand, you did what you set out to do - you danced for a long time, you had three children, and you're still in there swinging.

AK: [laughing] I'm in the swing - yes.

RG: And you've written a really fine book.

AK: Oh, thank you. I'm very pleased this book got out. I still can't believe it.

RG: One critic I know who's read it told me he thought it was the best book ever written by a ballerina. I tend to agree with him, and I've read them all.

AK: Oh, that's - I'm really thrilled to hear that. Hurrah!