San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Making her move
‘Fancy Nancy” illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser has partnered with ballet dancer Allegra Kent for the new book “Grand Jeté and Me.” It follows a little girl and her grandmother creating a holiday adventure to see the New York City Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker.”
“‘The Nutcracker’ is possibly the most beloved ballet in any company’s repertoire. It’s not unusual for it to be the first ballet young people are exposed to,” said Preiss Glasser, who was a professional ballet dancer before becoming a bestselling children’s book illustrator. “Also, Allegra Kent danced the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy yearly in the world-famous George Balanchine version, which becomes part of the story in our book.
“I’ll never forget the first time I saw ‘The Nutcracker’ at the New York City Ballet. It was an event for my whole family, but since I wanted to be a dancer, it had a particularly powerful effect on me. I must have danced in a production of it every year for almost 20 years during my career.”
Besides her work with “Fancy Nancy” author Jane O’connor, Preiss Glasser has worked with Ann Patchett, Sarah Ferguson and many others. She lives in San Juan Capistrano with her husband.
Q:
Who is Allegra Kent, and why did you want to partner with her?
A: Allegra Kent was one of Balanchine’s muses, and he created many ballets for her. I was a professional ballet dancer before I became an illustrator, and when I was a student in the School of American Ballet summer course in the early 1970s, Allegra was a big star at the New York City Ballet. I’ll never forget standing in the doorway of the ballet studio in awe watching Allegra in company class. She had a soft, lyrical and otherworldly unique style of dancing that made her enigmatic and compelling.
“Grand Jeté and Me” is about a little girl going to see New York City Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” with her beloved grandmother — who she calls Grand Jeté. It’s a story that focuses on the passion and power ballet had over me when I was young, before ballet became my job. The opportunity to work on a book about ballet from that perspective, and with a dancer I had idolized as a young girl, was a complete thrill.
Q:
What does the title mean?
A:
A grand jeté is a big leap which one sees often in ballet. It is an exuberant and joyful movement, as well as the name the little girl in the story calls her grandmother, who, like the author, was a legendary ballerina. The love the two share is at the heart of the book, so it is a fitting name for both the little girl’s grandmother as well as the title of the book.
Q:
How did you decide on the colors and clothes to interpret this story?
A:
I love this question. An illustrator wears many hats to make a 32page book. Like creating a movie — where there is a director, casting director, costume designer, scenic designer, editor — I get to be all of those people for my books. I particularly love designing the clothes the characters wear. This particular story is based on real people and places. Knowing I was going to draw New York City at Christmastime — Lincoln Center and New York City Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’ — I took a ton of photos to reference. It was important to me to portray the legendary New York City Ballet designer Barbara Karinska’s gorgeous costumes correctly, so Allegra and I had the wonderful opportunity to go backstage to look at the costumes close-up. The red swing coat for the grandmother, I designed that myself. It became the only complaint Allegra had when she looked at my sketches. She wanted to make sure that wasn’t real fur on the collar and cuff. I had to repeatedly assure her I was drawing fake fur!
Q:
What scene was most challenging to interpret?
A:
For the most part, this book was a dream to illustrate because it really came from my heart. It gave me the opportunity to express my love for Allegra, my love for all adults who share a passion with a child — especially my parents and teachers who shared their love of the arts with me, as well as that early, intense emotion I felt as a child when experiencing live dance.
Technically, creating the illustration of the snow scene was the most difficult for many reasons. The moment in the ballet that I chose to depict has 12 dancers doing grand jetés in a snowstorm, which is actually millions of paper hole punches that rain down on the dancers for the entire second half of the dance! As dancers, we spend our careers molding ourselves, and I needed to draw all fingers, feet, heads, necks and dance positions as correctly as I could to pay tribute to that work. For this scene, I drew each dancer individually — drawing and redrawing each one in order to capture that sense of motion in as few lines as possible before placing them all correctly in a group on the page.
Q:
Please talk about your ballerina career and how you became an illustrator.
A:
The term ‘ballerina’ is reserved for ballet dancers who reach the very pinnacle of the art form and dance the lead roles in the great ballets — “Swan Lake,” “Giselle,” etc. — so I never would call myself a ballerina. Allegra Kent was one of the great American ballerinas. I had a wonderful career as a dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet, now the Philadelphia Ballet, and danced in many of the great ballets. I was mostly chosen for the dramatic roles, and I loved to show a story or emotion through dance. My back and hips were shot by the time I was 30, so, needing another outlet to express myself, I enrolled in Parsons School of Design and got my bachelor of arts in illustration, which helped me transition to a new place. I love to advise anyone going through a change in their life to take a class — learn something new, explore other passions. It revitalizes the soul and one never knows where it might lead.
After graduation, I immediately got an agent and had four years of artwork in my portfolio to show publishers. I was ready! It took six more years of pounding the pavement before I finally got my first paid assignment. So, altogether it was 10 years after I stopped dancing before there was a payoff. I loved the doing of it. I never gave up. Once I got published, however, I had steady work, and the discipline and work ethic I learned as a dancer certainly contributed to my success. I enjoyed illustrating books for many authors, such as Judith Viorst, Garrison Keillor, Sarah Ferguson and Lynne Cheney, before the crazy success of the “Fancy Nancy” book series happened, and licensing became a part of my job description. That was fun as I adored helping to create all the many dolls and clothes based on the “Fancy Nancy” series. After Disney bought the rights to “Fancy Nancy” for their animated series of the same name, I did other books, such as “Lambslide” and “Escape Goat,” written by the queen of novelists, Ann Patchett, who I adore more than life itself. This wholly unexpected career that came late in life has been the cherry on top of a long life of perseverance, and I feel truly grateful.