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Mistress of the Dance From vaudeville to the Nutcracker, Elissa Fuchs has left her mark with the generations By Maria Johnson
5-6-7. Where’s 8?
She’s coming, someone says. It’s the first rehearsal of the ballet corps in the Waltz of the Flowers, a dance in Tchaikovsky’s Christmas classic, The Nutcracker. The 92-year-old has been choreographing the waltz for the Greensboro Ballet for nearly 30 years. She used to choreograph other Nutcracker dances, too. But now, she’s down to the waltz, a peaceful valley between peaks of showier numbers that happen in the second act while the prince squires Clara around Dreamland. The eighth girl arrives. Fuchs begins. She stands before them in tight black pants, a loose blouse, and supple practice shoes. Her lips and fingernails are dabbed with red. Her beauty-shopped hair is smooth and silver. Gravity has had its way with her, compacting her frame, but there is green in her limbs yet. You can tell by the way she moves in front of the mirrored wall. Have any of you ever done the waltz before? One? OK, we start from scratch. That’s where she started with dance. She was three and living in New Orleans. Back then, she was Elise Minette Levy. Her father sold lighting fixtures and did stage lighting. Her mother was a frustrated artist who thought all little girls should take dance. Elise’s older sister did, but it didn’t stick to her. It stuck to Elise. So did acting. She joined a children’s theater. Whenever anyone asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, she pointed to the stage. OK, 1-2-3-4-5-6. Turn your body more. Honey, stretch that back leg on six. When Elise Levy was 16, her mother got a letter from another mom who’d moved to Chicago with her daughter, a professional dancer. Come to Chicago
22 O.Henry
December 2011/January 2012
in September, the mother said, they’re casting shows. No, said Elise’s father, we don’t have the money, and you should finish high school. Elise’s sister, who was just married, heard about the opportunity. I’ll pay for you to go to Chicago, she told Elise. OK, said their father, but only if the rabbi approves. I know what you’re worried about, the rabbi said. You’re worried about a young girl going into show business. But if you haven’t taught her right from wrong by now, it’s too late. Let her go. 1-2-3-4-5-6. Back. And breathe. And plié. And smile! Bouree! Face this way to me! Elise and her mother stepped off the train in Chicago. The headlines said, “Huey Long Assassinated.” That was a Tuesday. They moved into a rooming house and went to see the numerologist who lived upstairs. She helped them pick a new name for Elise. Half the people in show business were Jewish, but it was still risky to keep a Jewish name, especially if you wanted to dance ballet. They tinkered with the first and middle names. Elissa Minet sounded French. Perfect. By Friday, the little French girl had a job in vaudeville. She was a chorus girl. She tapped, kicked and spun around stage, sometimes in a see-through dress. You had to be a little risqué in vaudeville. For eight months, she and her mother, an excellent seamstress who was hired on as a wardrobe assistant, traveled with the troupe: a chorus of 16 girls; a comedian; a straight lady who fed softballs to the comedian; a star act; a tumbler; a juggler; and a guy with a trained seal. They survived a fire, a flood and a bus accident. When they got back to Chicago, Minet got word that the producer Michael Todd — a future Mr. Elizabeth Taylor — wanted to see her. Minet thought she was going to be fired. Todd offered her a solo act on the nightclub circuit. Minet can-canned, tangoed and rumbaed her way around Chicago for a year. The avuncular Todd found her a short-lived job on Broadway. He got her other auditions. She worked the borscht circuit, a cluster of resorts popular The Art & Soul of Greensboro
Photographs By Sam Froelich
E
lissa Fuchs is always counting. Sometimes silently. Sometimes aloud. It comes from a lifetime of dancing. Right now, she counts teenagers in tutus.