From across the studio, he looked like the real thing. Gone were the warrior`s garb, the football cleats, uniform, and padding. Instead, he was barechested, his muscled legs swathed in navy tights, his large feet encased in white ballet slippers. Frowning with concentration, he encircled the ballerina`s impossibly small waist and lifted her high above his head.
But as she extended a long, leotarded leg behind her, Willie Gault, the Chicago Bears` speedster, lost his newly acquired balletic poise. He ducked. For a rare moment, the 26-year-old wide receiver struggled to regain his balance as the ballerina swayed in his arms. She managed to land on her feet unperturbed, like a delicate cat.
Gault grinned at her self-consciously. He was not used to making mistakes. ”Maybe I should bring my helmet next time,” he said ruefully and shook his head.
”Don`t worry. If she kicks you, it won`t hurt too much,” chuckled Paul Mejia, Gault`s teacher and the co-artistic director of the Chicago City Ballet.
Gault was rehearsing for his latest in a dizzying array of projects, a benefit ballet co-sponsored by the Chicago City Ballet and the Better Boys Foundation. The results of his work can be seen Monday night at Francis W. Parker School. The benefit will feature an unlikely combination of CCB dancers, the speedy wide receiver, and 25 inner-city kids in the premiere performance of ”Dreamer`s Journey.” Choreographed for the occasion by Carmen de Lavallade, the piece uses the same kind of funky rap poetry that catapulted another of Gault`s projects, the Bears` ”Superbowl Shuffle” video, to record sales last winter. This time, Gault will star as a dreamer who leads a band of bored youths from their street-corner hangout to a fantasy land of fun.
Although he`s not the first football player to study ballet, Gault might be the most hard-working. He and ballerina Maria Terezia Balogh prepared for their performance in the CCB`s River North studio. During their seven or eight practice sessions, they performed the same moves over and over as the elevated train roared by and the late afternoon sun sent shadows across the polished ivory floor. Soon, remarkably soon for a guy who claims to have only glimpsed ballet on public television while changing channels, Gault began to look like a reasonable facsimile of a dancer.
Throughout it all, the former Olympic track star appeared inexhaustible. For seral weeks in the past month, he commuted downtown from the Bears`
training camp in Lake Forest to rehearse ballet, sometimes after eight hours of football practice and weight-lifting.
And when it was all over, he asked for more. One night, after a particularly grueling rehearsal, Gault remained on the floor, bounding across the floor on legs seemingly made of steel springs. ”Am I gonna get to do some jumps?” he asked Mejia, his eyes shining with anticipation. ”I want to do some jumps!”
”I got asked to this because, being a receiver, (the benefit sponsors)
knew I have finesse and grace. I also happen to care about kids,” said Gault, whose wife, Dainnese, is expecting their first child this November.
Legs splayed, elbows on his thighs, the father-to-be sat in a folding chair, supposedly relaxing after an open rehearsal at the Better Boys Foundation`s West Side center. His words flowed as smoothly as his lightening strides down the football field–and seemed equally well rehearsed.
Like his other first-string teammates, the wide receiver from Griffin, Ga., has become a Super Bowl superstar accustomed to giving interviews. He said he hopes his new-found fame will help launch a successful acting career. As he spoke, his eyes continually scanned the television and newspaper reporters watching him in the stark hall.
”One of the reasons I`m doing this is I don`t want to be perceived as a dumb jock,” continued the man who is perhaps football`s fastest wide receiver. ”Football is not the most important thing in my life,” he continued. ”There`s other things like my family, and God. I`m concerned about deeper things–gangs, drug abuse, and apartheid. . . . I also think about my future.”
During the 169 days between last season`s Super Bowl and this season`s training camp, Gault, who has a bachelor`s degree in marketing from the University of Tennessee, spent his time relentlessly marketing himself. He took acting lessons, auditioned for soap operas, appeared on television, traveled to Moscow to discuss the Goodwill Games with Ted Turner and negotiated endorsements for, among other things, camera equipment, gasoline, even his own clothing line. He also managed to squeeze in a few community events–judging a local elementary school`s pet contest, speaking about drug abuse to high-school kids, and of course, performing the ballet.
”I guess I`m a hustler,” said Gault. ”I like to say I have a diversified portfolio. I`ve been blessed with abilities and talent and I try to use them. . . . I guess I`m also a ham. I love being in front of the camera.”
Grinning, he bent forward from the waist to stretch. Only when discussing his subjects other than football did he seem to slip out of his careful interview style. ”A football player doesn`t play forever,” Gault said. ”I know the things I`m doing now to help the community will help me in the future.
”It`s not like all I`m doing is McDonald commercials and if the team doesn`t do well, they`ll yank them off. I`d like to play maybe four more years, then do television and movies. For now, I really don`t hang out much with the guys on the team. You won`t see me in many bars. I`m too busy building my career.”
How does that attitude go over at training camp?
”Some guys might resent me.” He shrugged. ”But I worked hard for everything I got. If they resent it, let them do what I do. Let them do charity work and start hopping on planes to make appearances. The trainers can`t get mad at me. I give 100 percent when I play. And I`m in my best shape when I report for camp because I train all year. I . . .”
A television reporter motioned to Gault, indicating that he was ready to interview him live on his station`s evening news program. ”Uh, is that it?” the Gault said, standing. ”I`ve gotta go.” Without another word, he moved on to his next interview.
— — —
Slim and muscular in a white workout suit, 19-year-old Devae Dolley hung back at the edge of the crowd, watching Gault and the tumult his presence caused in the stark Better Boys Foundation rehearsal hall. Hands shoved in his pockets, he just smiled as his friends mobbed the wide receiver and mugged for the television cameras.
Like the football player, Dolley also wants to be a star. But the soft-spoken youth doesn`t want to be in the movies. He dreams of being a top 40 rapster, whose group, the Devastating Mike Dominators, would deliver their funky poetry in concerts worldwide. The DMD`s four members are mainstays in tonight`s dance benefit performance of ”Dreamer`s Journey.” And the soft-spoken teenager with thick-lensed glasses is the proud author of the piece`s rap lyrics.
”I even wrote Willie`s part,” Dolley said, grinning shyly. ”I performed it during our rehearsals all summer. I got a lot of attention from that.” Earlier this afternoon, Dolley said he showed Gault the part he had written for him. ”I think he liked it `cause he asked me to say it. Then he smiled and slapped me on the back and asked me to say it again.”
Dolley and his brother, Damien, are two of the 25 kids from 9 to 19 who spent their summer rehearsing five days a week, eight hours a day, all under the watchful, sometimes strict eye of CCB principal dancer Joseph Marlbrough, 24, who also will perform at the benefit. Being part of the performance was a unique experience for the kids, all who live in Lawndale, a West Side community known more for poverty and street gangs than involvement in the arts.
Dolley, who graduated from high school last year and now works at a fast- food restaraunt, said that the discipline required in rehearsals helped him make some hard decisions about his future.
”I`d never been involved in something so big and so hard to do before. Now, that`s it`s almost over, I feel proud that I stuck with it and I want to do more,” he said. ”I`m going to give myself a year to try to make it with rap, and if that doesn`t work, I`m either going to college or into the army so I can get a good job.”
Like many of the youthful dancers, Dolley heard about the ballet through word-of-mouth on the street. ”At first, I wasn`t too hip to dancing ballet,” he said and rolled his eyes. ”But when I found out we`d be rapping, well, I said OK.”
Although the kids tried to appear bored at the prospect of meeting and working with Gault, Venice Johnson, director of cultural arts for the Better Boys Foundation, knew better. She said that appearing in performances like this one, the second major project put on by the BBF, can draw youths off the streets and permanently change their lives.
”We`re not trying to make these kids singers and dancers, that`s not the point,” she said. ”We`re trying to show them that there are alternatives, that famous people like Willie Gault and Carmen de Lavallade care what happens to them. And believe me, to these kids, that means an awful lot.”
— — —
”One, two, three, four, two, two, three, four . . . get closer, you`re too far away from her,” Mejia coached Gault in Chicago City Ballet`s studio. Slowly, the wide receiver reached for the ballerina`s waist to turn her as she balanced on one satin toe shoe. ”Yes! That`s right!” Mejia shouted. Then he sighed. ”No, there`s still something wrong. Let`s try it again.”
Sweat dripping down his forehead, the football player studied himself in the mirror as he repeated the move again and again. Next, he was supposed to lift Balogh skyward, let her fall for a split second, and then quickly catch her under her arms before she hit the floor. Gault was clearly more accustomed to catching flying footballs. Each time he dropped and roughly grabbed Balogh, her smile grew a little more strained. Finally, Marlbrough took his place to demonstrate.
”You`re much smoother than I am,” the football player said, frowning as he watched the young man, who from a distance could be his twin, flawlessly execute the combination.
”Don`t worry about that,” Mejia assured Gault in fatherly tones. ”I want you to feel comfortable and athletic. Think of yourself as doing muscle- building poses.”
Gault stole a glance at the other CCB troop members who watched him from the hallway. But he needn`t have worried about his audience`s reaction. In spite, or perhaps because of his struggles, they were impressed. ”He`s really strong. That`s why they picked him for this,” said one delicate-looking young woman.
Gault worked on his steps well into the evening. And then, as the sky began to darken outside the CCB studio, rehearsal was over.
”Thank you,” he called to Balogh as she headed for the dressing room.
”I hope I didn`t hurt you too bad.”
The ballerina just turned and laughed.
Chicago City Ballet, a benefit performance for the Better Boys Foundation, 7 p.m.; Francis Parker School Auditorium, 330 W. Webster Ave. $25- $50. 943-1315.
