David Coll

Former Ballet Dancer with American Ballet Theatre currently Certified Gemologist Appraiser with the American Gem Society and owner of Montclair Jewelers

• I began ballet at the age of 12 in San Leandro, California, in 1960, under Vern Nerden. My first teacher advised me that ballet would help my tumbling, which I had started a few months earlier. At twelve I was still pretty scrawny, but managed to lift the girls in the pas de deux classes at the Academy of Dance. In fact, I seemed to be enjoying that class more than the others, what with the chance to dance with girls in leotards and all. That’s where I met, at thirteen, and later married, Maile Ackerman. For my eighth grade school class, I danced the grand pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty with Linda Burror. By the time I was in high school I knew this was the career for me.
• In my senior at Alameda High School, I was asked to join the San Francisco Ballet Company. I was able to tour with them for nine weeks, to New York City, where I had the opportunity to dance with the company on the Ed Sullivan Show while we were performing at the New York State Theatre. From 1965 to 1969 I danced most of the Christensen ballets then in the repertoire. I was raised to the rank of Principal dancer and danced a solo part in the ABC production of Lew Christiansen’s Beauty and the Beast narrated by Haley Mills. In 1969 I was fortunate to help in the creation of Eliot Feld’s new company American Ballet Company, which had its premier at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. From Italy we went to Germany’s Bavarian Film studios to film his ballets.
• In 1970 I joined the American Ballet Theatre, during the illustrious years when star ballerinas Natalia Markarova, Gelsey Kirkland, Carla Fracci and premier dancers like Mikhail Baryshnikov, Fernando Bujones, and Erik Bruhn were still in the company. We traveled to Europe and all around the U.S. and opened the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. From 1970 to 1975 I danced in most of the ballets in the repertoire, was raised to the rank of soloist, and worked with choreographers Michael Smuin, Jerome Robbins, Eliot Feld, Alvin Ailey, Agnes deMille, and Antony Tudor.
• In 1975 I retired from the professional ballet career and drove back to California with my wife Maile and son James to join my father’s jewelry store in the Montclair District of Oakland. I completed my studies at the Gemological Institute of America, received my American Gem Society Certified Gemologist Appraiser title and managed the store for six years before purchasing it from my folks. While I still operate the store successfully to this day, I also kept my physical activities going, now primarily for my health than for a career. I was always an avid jogger since high school and continued this activity while studying the martial arts, later becoming the head instructor for the Walnut Creek East-West Karate Schools.
• After studying five years of karate with my son James, I took up Tai-chi and continued the meditation practices learned in the martial arts. In 1987, at forty, I found the meditation practices had caused my body to age more slowly than I thought it would, so I took up ballet again, this time just for the fun of it. I danced with the Contra Costa Ballet, Alameda Chamber Ballet, and California Ballet, and found I could still perform a lot of the principal parts and solo variations, if I tailored them somewhat from my ABT days. I danced with the Alameda Civic Ballet until 2003, at 56 years of age. Now at 63 in 2010 I am a grandfather to my son’s daughter and son, still have that feeling of youth in my veins, and enjoy vintage ballroom dancing with Sherry, my love, who shares my enthusiasm for dance and life...
Saturday October 10, 2009, on a small balcony just out side the ballroom, David proposed to his girl friend Sherry at the Regency Ball in Kensington…she lovingly accepted. They married May 29th, 2010

Less