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May 9-15, 2002 dance William DeGregory
William DeGregory, about to be 44, after a 27-year career with Pennsylvania Ballet, 19 of those in a famous partnership with his wife, former PAB principal dancer Tamara Hadley, retires as a principal dancer at The Sleeping Beauty’s final performance on May 12.
City Paper: Did you have any favorite roles? William DeGregory: Definitely. What I love best are the classics because I did them with Tammy most of the time, and there's a story so you have to be able to act, never mind the steps, and they had all these luscious costumes, and it really transported me to another place. I was no longer Bill DeGregory.
CP: Did you have a least favorite? WD: I didn't like everything, but I was always able to get something out of everything. I've said to Tammy that our career was really about each other. And even when you did a dance that was bad your thought process was about the other person, and you almost forgot the negative.
CP: So partnering was central. WD: My favorite thing was partnering. For weeks Tammy and I would work alone in a studio, rehearsing a pas de deux. Then we'd run through it in the studio in front of other dancers, and that's the hardest thing. Other people there break the intimacy. When you get on stage you don't see the audience, or anyone, and the intimacy returns. Right away we had this rapport. There would be no one else in the room -- and every time we performed it was the same way.
CP: Did you ever cue each other verbally? WD: Poor Tammy, I was always talking behind her back. She loved it. Now and then when things weren't going so good she'd say "shhh." But I was always communicating. It settles the other person down.
CP: What's the funniest thing that happened? WD: There's a place in Nut Pas [dancer shorthand for Nutcracker Pas de Deux] where we did a shoulder sit. We run toward each other. Tammy leaps in the air in a sitting position with her arms over her head and I catch her. One time at a rehearsal I was wearing leg warmers and they slipped down onto my heel. We ran toward each other (Tammy always did everything full out.) Suddenly I slid and I'm on my back, and I see Tammy sailing over me, sitting in air, ready to be on my shoulder. I hear a crash and then absolute hush in the studio while everyone thought, "My God, is this woman dead?"
CP: You met your wife when you arrived in 1975. Jeff Gribler was here; Roy Kaiser came a bit later. Now Roy's artistic director? WD: Jeff, Tammy, Roy and I all grew up together here. When Roy said he wanted to be director I was astonished, and I know Tammy was, and I'm sure Jeff said it too. Everyone thought "Roy'll only be in a couple years, it will be a transition period." But he took the bull by the horns. He doesn't play games with his dancers. If you put the work in, you're going to get what you put in. I've never seen anyone who knows how to put together an exceptional program the way he does.
CP: You'll retire as full-time dancer but will be artistic director of Pennsylvania Ballet II, the new pre-professional company. WD: That's right. All the things I've learned I can give back to these dancers. And, I'll still do character parts. I'd love to do Dracula again -- it was a riot, I want to fly again.
CP: This is home? WD: We grew up here, Tammy and I. I was really a little kid when I arrived. I grew up in this environment, this company, this city. Roy kept us together -- Jeff, Roy, Tammy and I. That's why the company looks the way it does right now. We're solid at the core.
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