Gary Flannery – a dancer of the World: an Interview (Part I)

It is quite hard, nearly impossible to try to describe the fun I had while working on this interview. It is so WONDERFUL and SO IMPORTANT to keep all this information and material for future generations... all this wonderful information preserved. I have tried to keep Mr Flannery’s answers as unchanged as possible because they are like him: quick, excited, filled with energy, knowledge, joy... and that is the "sound of it", the "rhythm" that he gives to his own story. Just like a dance, like a story, told through a choreography. Very precious statements..

At the beginning of one of my last interviews, with Andrey Sorokin, principal dancer from the Yakobson Ballet in St. Petersburg, I mentioned shortly Norman Maine played by the great James Mason in the Cukor`s classic „A Star is born". Mr Maine says „Harsh times call for harsh methods". During this pandemic we are all facing harsh times and, as nearly everywhere, Art stood still in Austria. The Opera is closed. I was not expecting much from this new period, after Manuel Legris' 10 years here but absolutely NOTHING is a sad scenario that is quite hard to accept.

Complain as I may, I have to admit that my Grandmother`s Portuguese saying „Há males que vem para o bem" (In English something like „Every cloud has a silver lining") even if it sounds very old-fashioned and basically very „schmaltzy", it is completely right: Were it not for this pandemic and the "artistic desert" that was brought along with it into our lives, I would not have dared (or dared so sudden) to cross borders, even the Ocean to make interviews abroad and start adding more and more information to „attitude".

A friend once called me „Guardian of the Arts". I would not dare to be so presumptuous but I see myself somehow as a guardian of certain facts, facts about dance and its history, to make sure that younger generations have the opportunity to read them.

To read is so very important but with the quick pace of our times, in which dancers have to learn huge repertoires quickly, they simply do not have enough time either to go deep into the characters they are portraying or to form ideas, compare facts, analyze versions or „ballet readings", study...

Add the „phenomenon mobile and Internet" and its alarming effect on younger generations such as unlearning how to write and read...

Once I worked with a dancer called Zdenek Hampl, a principal from the „Lanterna Magika" in Prag and he used to say: „A dancer who does not know what a Square root is, cannot dance". Of course, this is a big exaggeration but somehow we can well understand what he was saying – well, now you also know what I stand for with „attitude", which are my aims and targets, what I want to achieve... and preserve.

Copyright: Roy Blakey for After Dark magazine

Back in 1979, I was invited for the Première of „All that Jazz" and what a Première that one was. A film that still is so actual in its themes and treatment of them. A film that has not aged. A film that makes us wonder WHY choreography like that is not being made anymore. And every time I watch it, I wonder more and more.

Gary Flannery caught immediately my eye. Yes, every single dancer was talented and spectacular (Bob Fosse surely knew how „to pick them" and combine them for the best results ever – either on stage or on film) but Mr Flannery`s incredible vitality mixed with a unique charisma made him stand out on the screen. A Dancer through and through.

Preparing for this experience – and what an experience this is - and this interview was absolutely a joy. Mr Flannery reminds me of the title of an Agatha Christie book: „Elephants can remember". Amazing. For me, it seems that he remembers everything! And the best of all: his answers are so rich in details, so „plastic", somehow so real and so strong is its rhetorical quality that you feel like living through his memories. Fascinating. Inspiring.

„Gary, although no introduction is needed, tell us please a bit about your birth and childhood... how you began to dance! (and have never stopped!)„ I add, happily.

„Well, I was born Francis Xavier Gary John Flannery in Philadelphia to wonderful parents, Francis Xavier and Eleanor Flannery on June 23rd, 1951 and to 4 siblings: older and younger brothers and 2 younger sisters. It was always rumoured that because I was completely crazy with energy, I had to be harnessed inside and outside our wonderful house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania!" he laughs.

„The energy and vitality of a dancer already at such young age?"

„You say it: My Russian grandmother, Anna Chankus, made sure that I had an outlet for all that energy, so she found a great Russian ballet teacher in our area for me at 5 years old! His name was Henriques—and he had danced with the legendary Ballets Russes and was also an authentic Bullfighter!!!! No nonsense technique classes and very strict Classical ballet were taught by this master, cane in hand for gentle corrections!"

„And from then on you wanted to become a dancer?"

„Not really...", he adds „While I was always into sports more than the dancing, I continued to go to classes, after my sisters dropped out because I saw that it was giving my skinny body some muscles! Luckily, the local and schoolboys never found out, so I was spared all of „that" for then, at least!"

„Now you have woken up my curiosity. How did it go on in Philadelphia? By the way, I just watched „Kitty Foyle" with Ginger Rogers some days ago... Philadelphia plays a big role in the movie"

„ Well, I enjoyed the classes and advanced quickly after a few years, and by 8, I was also taking classes with another great teacher Fred Knect and even weekends were getting filled with classes, and small performances, in my church Minstrel Shows, where, yes, I performed, with most of the cast in blackface", he pauses for a second and say "It wasn't something that I understood but as I remember there was great respect for the singing and dancing of the past, though it was mixed with occasional offensive jokes on the black race. Something that nowadays would be totally wrong, politically incorrect and completely unacceptable!"

He wonders for a second as if touching his own memories and continues „My parents, besides my grandmother, had a lot to do with my dancing! They were wonderful Ballroom dancers, and went out quite often to dance the night away! We always had great music playing in our house, from Frank Sinatra to Sammy Davis to loads of Big Bands like Dorsey and Miller and Goodman, and I was often asked to dance around the house—at adult parties or card clubs, weddings, etc! „, he laughs „I became a real dancing Machine"

„And during all those years you continued doing Sports?"

„Yes, I was a big Sports fan, like my dad, who had played semi-pro football. I excelled at baseball and played Little League for years. I had a sweet swing for a small frame and hit home runs regularly (Note: don't think I am showing off by writing this – I had to ask Gary what this was all about since I do not understand a thing about baseball!) It was a bit of a balancing act to be able to keep up with my dance classes and yet I still played ball with the gang in the Oakford neighbourhood "

„You are making me more and more curious!", I say jokingly.

„We are getting there", he smiles „Finally at about 10-11 years old, I chose to dance and took classes daily. By 12 and 13 I had discovered another teacher, Jean Williams in Germantown close to downtown Philly. I was getting there any way I could: with a busy dad taking me sometimes, with another older dancer who drove some days and eventually taking buses and trains myself and even getting home some nights at 10 pm. My dad had been in WW2 with Patton and still served in the Army Reserves, but he knew how much I loved these ballet classes, and he approved wholeheartedly! Thanks again, Dad!"

Copyright: Jack Mitchell for Dance Magazine (cover)

„But you eventually left Philadelphia... „

„ Yes, but before that, I stayed involved with baseball till high school. Then it became all dance. I was given the opportunity to audition for Balanchine's School of American Ballet for a summer when I was about 15 and was accepted and given a full scholarship as well as some reimbursement for living. I went back to Pennsylvania as a changed and totally dedicated dance student. Jean Williams offered some performances both live and on TV and I took classes 24/7, including jazz and modern. I was advancing steadily and getting in amazing shape mentally as well as physically. I knew I wanted to go back to SAB, so the next summer I auditioned again and was put in all the advanced level classes, with a new friend called Fernando Bujones. I was then asked to stay yearlong and was given more scholarship and schooling in NYC"

„Being in New York at those times and at such a young age how exciting! What an apprenticeship!"

„Definitely. We were fortunate to be taken to many live performances and even an early viewing of Nureyev and Fonteyn with the Royal Ballet doing „Paradise Lost" and „Romeo and Juliet" and that made me crazy! I also watched several shows on Broadway like „Fiddler on the Roof" and Fosse's „Sweet Charity", which showed me another side of dance. I attended as many performances as I could, almost every night in NYC. I soaked it all in and talked to everybody! I realized that I had the height, looks and talent to go in whatever direction I wanted to take and it all began o be in earnest!"

„Please continue... what else do you remember? Just like this, spontaneously? You see, it is so incredibly interesting to listen to memories from the time in which so much happened in New York, from the time during so many different talents were growing up... Yes, I use the word „different" because, unlike nowadays' tendency, everyone was an own, independent personality... I guess it is much easier to assemble a homogenous corps de ballet now than in those days... How exciting!"

„OK, so in the Big Leagues, SAB and Balanchine came first. Because I was male and all the teachers liked me, I, like Fernando (Bujones), Jean-Pierre Fröhlich and a few others took up to 3- 4 classes a day, starting with the incredible Stanly Williams 8am Men's Advanced Class, which was frequented by Rudy, Bruin and superstar from the NYC Ballet, like Villella and Martins! These classes were of course extraordinary and mostly we young guys hid in the back. But—Stanley liked my Center dancing, so he would occasionally call me upfront TO DEMONSTRATE!! It was scary and thrilling and I would sometimes get applause! WOW! My hard work was paying off, and yet I was able to socialize with some of the guys and girls, and we would sneak a bottle of wine to Central Park on the weekends!" he laughs „Fernando and I got along great and we kind of had a mutual admiration! I had many remarkable teachers at SAB including Alexandra Danilova, Muriel Stuart, Dudin, Tumkovska and Andre Eglevsky. One day Andre, who was always dressed in a Ban-lon shirt and spotless white character shoes was trying to teach an intermediate technique class how to do multiple turns and got mad that no one could do more than 4, so he threw down his cane and with no warmup zipped into FOURTEEN PERFECT PIROUETTES! He chuckled and said: „Like that!". Hahaha!

Everything was going along fine and I, being straight (big deal), started dating a beautiful southern belle called Charlotte. Well, it turns out that one of the married senior members of the Company liked her - so he had me thrown out of the school! No lie! Diana Adams, who had always given me my scholarship and opportunities, called me in her office and said that they were not going to renew my scholarship! I was shocked and asked why and she gave some lame excuse that I wasn't really NYC Ballet type! What??? Later, through my friends there I found out the truth! Not to be unhinged, I immediately emptied out my locker at the old uptown SAB studios and walked across the Park to the Harkness Ballet, as it was still early morning, and walked right up to the desk, where Mrs Patricia Neary (Mom of ballerinas Pat and Colleen) was in charge - Told her the story, and she said WOW, she had seen me dance at SAB, and they must have been nuts! Well, as it turned out, the Company advanced class was going to start and she had me change and jump into the class! I did well and was given a full scholarship and a PAID TRAINEESHIP. Yes!"

„This is incredible... once more one can see that „there are no coincidences". Everything is somehow determined to happen one way... Now I am curious about Harkness – to be quite honest with you, I must admit that I don't know much... „

„Oh, my stay at Harkness was good for a while, and I was given understudy roles behind Lawrence Rhoads in Brian MacDonalds' „Time out of Mind"! Brian liked me and knew of some unpleasantness that I was having with some of the silly gay boys making fun of me and spreading sick rumours about me to the female dancers, who then would refuse to work with me!"

„What? This is absurd... first the married Senior Member of the New York City Ballet (I „wonder" who he was... ) and now this. This sounds to me also like a lot of jealousy..."

„Yep, it can be but it got so ugly that I had to quit, so I barged into Director Don Saddler and said I had had enough, and I was accepting Brian MacDonalds' offer to come to Canada and work with „Les Grandes Ballets Canadiens deMontréal".

„Definitely a beautiful company..." I say.

„I did so and also started working and performed with a folk dance company Les Feux Follets! Then my high school in Pennsylvania informed me that I had to come back to school in person for the last half of my senior year or I wouldn't graduate! So I moved back into my folks' house and started back at school. Two things happened there: I auditioned for and received a full scholarship to attend a Ballet Major course at Juilliard, and became a nationally ranked long-distance champion in the mile (4:19) and two miles (9:26) - I continue to run for the rest of my life, only quitting recently"

„To be quite honest: I had never heard of a dancer who runs... you must know muscles that not even doctors know of" I laugh – how did you manage that physically?"

He laughs and says „At School. One day the track coach took me out on the track and told me I WAS RUNNING!! Figuring that I could dance from 6 to 8 hours every day, he thought that long-distance would be tried since I had never run before! This first time I was timed in the 2 Mile run—I broke the school record by a minute and a half!! I continued to end up breaking many records and won 2nd place in a National Championship! I was offered track scholarships around the world but much to their dismay, I had already been offered my free ride to Juilliard! But I never gave it up and trained and worked with various groups, including some lightweight training and even ran mountains on my world tours!"

„Thank you, Gary, this is very interesting... but please continue – and sorry for interrupting you!"

„Call of 1969, I attend the opening of the new Juilliard at Lincoln Center, and as a freshman, I am put in all the advanced classes in ballet and adagio with Antony Tudor! I loved it and also advanced quickly in my Midterm Classes with José Limon and various Martha Graham teachers! I worked very hard-and though forbidden to go elsewhere, I used to sneak over to the Graham studios whenever I had a free night. Martha herself took notice of me in one of Bertram Ross's advanced class, where she pulled me out into the hallway, grabbed my arm tightly and said: „You're MINE!" Wow!"

Sort of speechless for a few seconds, I could only venture to say „Wow, says I..." very ungrammatically (but deliberately for this effect).

„Now back at Juilliard —Tudor himself asked me to leave and join ABT and Limon himself asked me to join his company! Double Wow. I was doing 5 pirouettes to the right, and 4 to the left, and had not only good double tours but had developed triple tours! In the middle of the spring semester of my 1st year, I was more than a little confused, and then Canada called and wanted me to do a World Tour of the musical "Anne of Green Gables" at over $1000 a week! Now ABT and Graham were paying $100 a week... I had some lengthy chats with Jerome Robbins, who had been working down the hall with the NYC Ballet at the time (as both, the SAB and Juilliard studios were side by side in the new building at Lincoln Center) and Jerome used to sit in the cafeteria mostly alone so I would pester him for answers about whether I should leave school, leave concert dance, go for the money, etc. Maybe I caught him at a good time but he seemed to like me and answered all my questions with a caring and nurturing tone. Finally, we decided there was little to no difference between concert and broadway except for the MONEY and if you had offers for a lot, then go for it! Looking back, I must say that I was thinking of my teachers at Juilliard, who were all amazing, especially Tudor, who one day held up the advanced class for 20 minutes at the barre for me to demonstrate a perfect point tendu, which is actually quite hard! I agreed with Mr Robbins, I always called him that (and „Sir" etc.) that I could continue with my classes anywhere in the world should I really want to—and I did!"

„I cannot wait to know what happened then!"

„I danced up to Martha Hills office, as she was the Directress of the Dance Department at Juilliard who gave me my scholarship etc. I told her what was happening. That I got a large role in a Canadian musical that was going to tour the world. Besides, I said, all of my teachers were trying to get me to leave school and enter their companies! She went through the roof and said that was not acceptable behaviour on their part, and how dare they, etc. Well, I told the truth and I doubt Tudor, Limon and Graham ever got in much trouble because of that! Hahaha!„

„Sorry to interrupt you, Gary but from what year are we now talking about? 1971? How was that experience? Where have you performed?"

„No, one year earlier: 1970! The Canadian Company tour of Anne was truly incredible and not only did we travel with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau at that time but he also made me a citizen of Canada since the tour was booked as an „all Canada Company"! We began as the opening show in Expo Hall in Osaka at the World Expo of 1970. We were officially personal guests of Emperor Hirohito and we were guests of honour at the Palace in Tokyo, where I sat right next to the princess! It was a dream, and I ate Kobe beef every day!"

I could not help thinking how dancers are always hungry...

„And after that? Did you stay in Canada for a while?"

„I loved Canada a lot and I was given not only just citizenship but also a Canadian Passport and Social Security as a full citizen. I had such a blast not only touring in Canada but especially loved my time on Prince Edward Island with the Charlottetown Festival! I had nice lead dance roles in Anne of Green Gables, Jane Eyre, and Private Turvey's War, I worked with Canada's top director-choreographer Alan Lund who was talented and instructive and helped me on many levels! Feux Follets was one of the top Folk Dance troupes in the world and within the Company, we had World Champion Scottish, Irish Gigue, and Russian dancers. I picked it all up quick but it was all VERY HARD WORK! The dancers in Canada loved me, and said I was NOT typical of most Americans which I now know was one of the nicest things that they could have ever said!"

„And what happened when you got back to the States?"

„I came back into NYC and found all sorts of jobs doing commercials, some TV Specials like „Lena Horne from Carnegie Hall" and some local Broadway Musicals with John Bowab! I always loved the art of theatre and dance, and I handled all of my contracts myself. I had no agent! I didn't need one as word was spread ing and I was getting calls for work without even auditioning – Yes, like for industrial shows as the „Milliken Breakfast Shows"! This show was a morning classy showcase of some of the best chorines and Broadway stars like Chita Rivera, Ann Miller and Cyd Charisse, the pay was incredible and you were able to do the whole show that you might be in on Broadway (and you got to keep all your hand made clothes and shoes as well !) Primo job! But Commercials for Hi C drinks and Dr Pepper were also high paying residual work, meaning that checks came in the mail for weeks or months or more!

„And still a young „boy"... how did you manage to keep taking classes etc.?"

„I loved performing but I took dance class every day, usually starting with advanced ballet classes in the mornings and even working with a jazz company; Fred Benjamin, in between Broadway and TV. This was a great black group that developed many dancers that went on to Star in Alvin Ailey and other concert troupes! Fred became a close friend who I later enlisted to do Master Classes in my own studios as well as Universities that I was teaching at. While I was meandering through this work, I auditioned for Pippin on Broadway with Bob Fosse, and that was my beginning of the Top Shelf!"

“Well, "Pippin", Fosse... now we are coming closer to a chapter that interests me immensely... I remember watching „Pippin" for the first time in Rio (Dances were staged by Gene Foote) and I fell in love with it right away... Tell us more... Ann (Annie) Reinking was also in it, wasn't she?"

...to be continued on October 29th, 2021