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I'm going to perform.

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That's right.

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But what did she do when she went to the opera house?

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She did Saturday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday performances in a 3800 seat theater or something like that as opposed to a 250 seat theater.

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Well, nobody came.

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Rather than doing two performances, a magnate evening, right away she, instead of renting the theater for a week,

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she could rent the theater for three days or two days.

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That's an enormous savings when you're going into a union house.

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That's an enormous amount of money saved right there.

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Do you think that Ruth would have been better served if she went?

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I don't suppose there's much sense in talking about it.

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I mean, it would have worked if Tom had been alive.

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Well, Tom wouldn't have let it happen that way.

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It would have happened anyway.

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He just wouldn't have.

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Okay, let me get a little bit into that.

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Okay.

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Here we go.

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So I have been told you really don't get very many very small children at the school,

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except the ones that live right in downtown Chicago.

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The children come to you when they're older.

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I have been told that this school is the place to come in Chicago and you are the person to teach dancers.

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I mean, the New York Times says it, so it must be true, right?

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Well, of course.

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I mean, isn't the New York Times says all the news that's fit to print or something like that?

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I don't know how fit that is to print.

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I don't know whether this is the place.

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I like to think this is the place.

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I would like this to be the place, certainly one of the places.

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Yes, the children's division of the school is about 125, 150 right now.

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That's a small proportion of the total enrollment of the school.

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Another rather large proportion of the enrollment of the school is adult classes,

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people who dance for an avocation rather than vocation, for a hobby, for physical fitness,

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although they come for physical fitness and they end up taking 18 classes a week

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or as many as they can take and it becomes, it's no longer for fitness.

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It's because they've been bit by the bug.

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Then there's the middle ground, which is probably the larger portion of the school.

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And that's generally people that come to us from other schools, sometimes from other towns,

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and they hear about the school, so when they come to Chicago, they come here.

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Or from other schools, suburban schools, neighborhood schools,

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people who I hope to think that a lot of them are sent by their teachers who feel that they show a special aptitude.

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And so they want the extra effort that it takes to get them downtown.

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We're in a kind of wonderful place, the school, I think, because we're supported by the foundation.

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We're able to keep the tuition very, very nominal.

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And that helps an awful lot of people when they have a very talented child.

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You know, dancing is not an inexpensive process at all.

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If you're on scholarship, it's not inexpensive at all.

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And the more advanced you become, the more expensive it becomes, especially for ladies.

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Shoes, tights, leotards, parking down in the city, that costs a great deal of money, gas traveling here.

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So usually the students who come here are students who are more committed and more talented

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so that their families and their parents feel that it's worth the extra effort, it's worth the extra expense to bring them down.

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We like to have them, once they do come and reach a certain level of the school, study daily.

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That's a big commitment on the part of a child and a family.

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So for that reason, we're in an enviable place.

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We have had some success. I've had us all collectively on the back.

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I have had some success. We have had some success with the students.

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And word of that gets around, and so people think perhaps this is one of the places to come.

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I like to think that, yes. I was very flattered with the reference in the New York Times from Mr. Baryshnikov

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about the school and my teaching in Chicago.

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Yes, I'm pleased with the way the school is going, and I'm pleased to see our place is becoming very solid and respected.

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It's very, very important to me, almost the most important thing to me, and I think it's quite important to Ruth.

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I remember when we first, when we discussed starting this school, she said, you know,

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I'd like very much for you to direct the school, but she said, as in everything else, I don't want just a school.

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I want the school. I want it to be the place.

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I want it to be the very best school we can make it, and I'm willing to do and support you in any way possible

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to make our school the best place it's possible for someone to come to dance.

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And that's important to me, too. And I think that's important.

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It's important to me not only that the school is good now, but it's also very important to me and to Ruth

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that the school continue to get better and continue to hold a very unique place in dance, not only in Chicago.

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At least we're both ambitious enough to want more than simply the best school in Chicago.

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We're hoping someday that it will be the best school, period.

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Well, that's quite something. Why do you think she picked you to run it, Larry?

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That's difficult to say, too. I think, quite frankly, I think because I was ballet master for a company,

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and as part of that responsibility, I taught the company.

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And because I started to teach the company, I became very interested in teaching.

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It's one of the reasons I kind of retired a bit from dancing, eased myself out of dancing.

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There was no great loss to dancing when I stopped dancing, but it was very, very important to me.

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Teaching was very important to me. And I think that Ruth realized that right away.

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I think she realized all the time, although she was very, very good to me as a dancer, that my interests,

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perhaps I was one of the few people in the company at that time who really, she could see the nucleus of a pedagogue or a teacher.

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And from the time I did start teaching the company, teaching was very important.

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It was much more important to me that I give a good class for the other dancers in the company than I give a good performance on my own behalf.

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That's what you need as a teacher. You need someone who's more willing to give than to take.

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And I think, I hope that Miss Page recognized that quality in me.

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Teaching has become the single most important thing in my life right now.

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Did you think it would be?

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Actually, no, not at the beginning. I don't think any dancer ever does.

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I thought I was going to do my fair share of princes and all of that.

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But I was disabused of that quite early on.

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I had neither the stature nor the looks of a prince, except maybe one before he was kissed by the princess.

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You can take that out of your mind.

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But I understood right away what I was. I was a demicaracter dancer, not a prince.

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And while I had a certain facility, and I like to think that, I tried very hard as a dancer.

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But I was never going to achieve the kind of career as a dancer that I had envisioned for myself.

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So it took me about 20, 30 minutes when I realized that, to realize that I had to do something else.

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And I should really do something else that I liked.

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Once I made the decision and started really trying other things, I found that I very much liked being ballet master.

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It was very rewarding to me.

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And as I said, a large part of that job was teaching. I became more and more interested in teaching.

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What do you think it is about you that makes you such a good teacher?

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I don't know what would make me a good teacher.

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I think a teacher is born. I don't think you learn to be a teacher.

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I think a teacher is like a choreographer. One can learn to put steps together, and one can learn to put a class together that's sensible and good.

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But a real teacher, like a real choreographer, is something that happens.

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And I hope it's happened to me. I don't know what it is that makes a teacher.

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There are so many things that make a teacher. And all the things that I can say that make a teacher, you can know and still not be a teacher.

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You can know all the things that make a good dancer. And you can have all the things that make a good dancer.

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But if you're not a good dancer, having all those things doesn't matter. The same is true with teaching.

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Are you tough, especially?

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I think I'm kind of like the steel fist in a kid glove or something like that.

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I'm tough, but I hope I'm not off-putting. I'm demanding.

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But I try to be demanding in such a way that I teach the people not to do things because I'm demanding of them, but rather demand more of themselves.

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I think a teacher is like a guide. A teacher can't teach you how to do, can only guide you along the way.

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I think a teacher should be inspiring. I think a teacher should be, of course, understanding.

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And yet not so understanding that they kind of understand you right out of the business.

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I think you have to be understanding, but yet not so understanding that you go, oh, you poor thing. I understand perfectly. Don't try it at all.

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You've got to say, yes, of course I understand you, but get on with it. Do it. You can do it. I have confidence in you.

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Have the same confidence in yourself, and you'll get it on. You'll get it done.

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You have to want to teach. You have to be very interested in what you get.

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I think being a teacher is a lot like being a psychologist because you have to approach different people different ways.

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Some you can really slap around, and they just thrive on it. The harder you beat them metaphorically, the better they do.

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And of course, if you just blink an eye in a too strong a fashion, some people just disappear into the back wall.

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So you have to treat people completely differently. You have to know those that you can go personally, those that you have to treat quite generally.

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You become really an observer of people. I often said that there are dancers that are extroverted dancers and introverted dancers.

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As far as personality, you can tell what a personality is, what a person's personality is by the way they dance.

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Dancers reveal themselves, people reveal themselves when they move, but dancers particularly when they move.

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And it gives you so many clues. It's the most fascinating profession. It really is.

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Did you ever see Ruth dance?

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Yes, I did see Miss Paige dance.

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My first year in the company, we were doing a ballet called Suzanne and the Barber.

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It was a wonderful, wonderful ballet. Now that's a ballet I think that should be revived, but that has to be revived in a little tiny beautiful little theatre.

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They're speaking in the ballet. It's a ballet based on the Barber of Seville.

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Miss Paige was doing Susanna, the maid. Bentley Stone was doing the Barber.

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Then the other characters were of course Rosina, the typical Rossini heroine and Count Almavive and Don Bartolo and Don Basilio, the father of Rosina and his friend.

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It was the most delightful ballet. I remember the first words of that ballet.

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The Barber came wheeling a barber's stall on wheels out on stage and he went,

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Figaro this, Figaro that, where's my cane, where's my hat, faster, faster, a mustard plaster.

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And Ruth does a little patasha on the stage and says, and he's the fool that we call master.

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Fool doddering, his brittle bones need soldering.

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She was absolutely the most beguiling thing in the world.

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Just absolutely, she was like champagne. She was absolutely like champagne. Beautiful feet, very vain of her feet.

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She used to do wonderful things. They had wonderful clave costumes and she would pose through these wonderful little poses

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and then she'd reach over and pull her skirt up a little bit and her foot in a black point she would be all pushed over, arch bulging out.

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She was absolutely just adorable, just absolutely adorable all the way through the performance.

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It's the only time I ever saw her dance. I did see her one other time.

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We did a galifante, it was called, at the Lyric Opera and she danced with Walter Cameron, an old duet that they used to do many years ago called Walt's Secile,

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which is another comedy number, kind of a period Walt's, 1890s, 1905, something like that.

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She was adorable. But the ballet, when she did Susanne the Barber, she was just absolutely beguiling, just beguiling.

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And what did Ruth's dancing tell you about Ruth as a person?

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Oh, her dancing reflects her completely, absolutely completely.

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I didn't see her do any of the dramatic roles because she did Azucena in Revenge, for example.

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But what I saw her do, Susanne, it so perfectly reflects Ruth. It was optimistic, it was cheerful, it was witty and amusing.

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Well, everything Ruth is, there was great charm and there was also great intelligence there, as there kind of is in the character of Rosina.

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It was a perfect reflection, taste, chic, depth. It was all there.

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Her dancing absolutely reflected Ruth.

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In the years that you've known Ruth, and there have been a lot of them, how has your image of Ruth changed? And how has Ruth changed?

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In the years that I've known Ruth, my perception of Ruth has probably changed a great deal simply by virtue of knowing Ruth longer.

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She's not an easy lady to know at all.

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She's tremendously polite. She's tremendously cultured.

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So she would never dream of kind of showing you her dark side, which of course everybody has. She would never show that to you.

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In the years that I have known her, I have had occasion to see her more kind of introspective side.

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She's easily put off, I think, by...

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I've started that wrong. She doesn't like to display her emotions.

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And yet, I have seen her in very, very, very trying circumstances, enough to know that she has very, very deep felt emotions.

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And that she's very easily hurt, and that would be the last thing she would want anybody to know about her.

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What kind of circumstances, Larry?

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I'm sorry, we have to change.