Bonnefoux bounces back from heart surgery. (Presstime News).

Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, who underwent quintuple bypass surgery following a heart attack in July, shared his good news: "I feel better than before the surgery. I'm doing great. I feel younger, right now, in fact," said the 58-year-old artistic director of North Carolina Dance Theatre.

When interviewed in October, he was looking forward to making his own version of Romeo and Juliet to the music of Hector Berlioz, which he loves, as well as working with contemporary composers. "I love to work with composers. It's a great satisfaction. It just brings me to a different world," Bonnefoux said. As a dancer with New York City Ballet in the 1970s, he became well-schooled in such collaborations by seeing choreographer George Balanchine work with composer Igor Stravinsky. And he plans to continue expanding his company's repertoire and introducing audiences to the work of such choreographers as Nacho Duato and William Forsythe.

When he had his heart attack, Bonnefoux had been working on his dance, Cinderella, at the Chautauqua Institution, a summer program in upstate New York encompassing the arts, religion, education, and recreation. Complications from surgery extended his hospital stay to five weeks. He returned to work part-time in September.

Dancers, known for their fitness, aren't thought of as candidates for heart problems. And Bonnefoux is no exception. He performed for fourteen seasons with Paris Opera Ballet, where he started dancing professionally at age 14. He gave his last performance at age 37 in 1980 as a principal dancer for New York City Ballet. He is married to Patricia McBride, also a former NYCB principal; they have a son and a daughter.

"It really came as a total surprise," he said of the heart attack. Three months before, he had been told his heart was just fine. He has no family history of heart disease. He has never had high cholesterol. He never drank much and stopped completely a year ago. He meditated. He jogged or walked four to five times a week, and he had been careful with his diet for a decade, though he had gained some weight since his dancing days.

His doctor attributed the heart attack to extreme fatigue. Bonnefoux had long been working ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week. "That's what all directors do," he said. Not only had he worked as artistic director and choreographer for the North Carolina Dance Theatre all year until June, but he then would go straight to Chautauqua, where he has served as artistic director, choreographer, and teacher at the school of dance and ballet company for nineteen years.

"There was no break. It was too much eventually," Bonnefoux said. "Sometimes you forget to listen to your own body. You work with dancers' bodies but you forget about your body."

In October, he continued rehabilitation to increase his stamina and planned to begin yoga. He continues to pay close attention to nutrition. He has had to forgo the oysters he loves.

But what about those chocolate truffles? His bio lists this candy as his favorite food. "Ideally, it is one of my favorite foods. I don't eat it. But I dream about it," he said.