How to Submit a Guest Post

A parent of a DS suggested that we should allow the boys to contribute essays to the blog. Her reasoning was sound – dancing boys like to hear from other dancing boys.

 

So we thought we would try it. Here are some guidelines:

     1. Please do not submit an essay without your parent’s knowledge.
     2. We would like to know how old you are.
     3. Do not use your full name. Something like “Chris, Boston, Ma.” is all we need.
     4. Your email address is private and we don’t want to know what it is. Instead use an address such as “Chris@nomail.com“
     5. The subject of your essay should have something to do with dance.

     6. The essay can be a page long or just a paragraph.

     7. Pictures are welcome and a great addition to your essay. Just include the URL(s) in your post. The URL(s) will remain private (we will upload the picture to wordpress). 
     8. Please check your essay for spelling and grammar before you submit it.

    

 

 

To submit your essay just “copy” and “paste” it in the comment box below. Comments are “moderated,” so we will see them before they are published.

 

We will review all contributed essays and may edit them for content, grammar and spelling. Once a essay is approved, it will be posted on the front page.

 

 

Posts by guest contributors may be found here.

 

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Connor Holloway’s ballet dream may take him places

By Andrew Adler
Courier-Journal
June 28, 2009

 

On a recent afternoon at the Louisville Ballet School, the hallways were filled with chattering dancers — a cascade of girls clad in pink leotards with their hair tucked into neat buns

Not far away stood a conspicuous figure amid this ocean of young women. He was 15-year-old Connor Holloway, who’s very much the exception when it comes to being a male ballet student.

A vocal major at the Youth Performing Arts School and son of Peter Holloway — artistic director of Music Theatre Louisville and Stage One — Connor Holloway is steeped in the relationship between art and audience. He’s sung roles in such musicals as “Oliver!” and established himself beyond the connection to his father.

Yet classical dance, standing apart from the jazz and tap styles he initially studied, is a new emphasis. Indeed, Connor has taken formal ballet lessons for only two years. But in that short span, he’s already progressed to the top range of the Louisville Ballet School.

Now he’s poised to take another big step. Over the next month, he’ll be attending a Detroit satellite program run by American Ballet Theatre, where he’ll be challenged as never before. It will be another affirmation that ballet can have plenty of male appeal.

Still, there is the inevitable question: Why is it so hard to get guys to study ballet? “I think a lot of boys are scared,” Connor said. Ballet, he added, “is not respected as a sport.”

Is ballet a sport, like football or basketball? Absolutely, Connor insisted. “We have competitions,” he said. And besides, “what is the definition of a sport? Ballet is athletic; people do it as a profession. I think you use just as much muscle, if not more, in ballet. Especially for guys, where you’re using a lot of upper-body strength and your legs a lot.”

A typical day at the Detroit ABT program involves much more than classical dance. It also embraces “modern, jazz, hip-hop, Pilates, yoga and partnering,” he said.

That’s partnering as in boy-meets-ballerina. If you’re a male ballet dancer, a great deal of your job involves lifting women. It’s not the kind of skill you pick up in a typical high school classroom.

Unfortunately, you don’t get much advice on building a career, a topic Connor spends quite a bit of time thinking about. Can he make it as a professional dancer someday — or is he sure he even wants to?

“That’s what I don’t know,” he acknowledged. “I’m trying to get all the tools that I can. I’ve just discovered a new world.”

But what if Connor decides to pursue a career in dance, and then finds that his body — like many of his peers’ — has a limited onstage lifespan?

While dancing the role of Fritz in the Louisville Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker,” he chatted regularly with his older colleagues. “A lot of the company members retire when they are 28,” he said. What then?

“After that I could do musical theater,” Connor mused. Assuming, that is, he becomes fully versed in the alternate demands of being a singing actor. Which brings him back to his current status as a YPAS student.

Connor is already looking at colleges, especially the University of Michigan, which has a particularly strong theater program. “My mom said that if I break my leg, I’ll have something to fall back on.”

Additionally, next year he plans to take on “the Big Three of dance auditions” — the San Francisco and Seattle Ballets, and the biggest of all, the New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet.

There are other issues to consider. “Another thing with dance is that I have to wait for my body,” said Connor, who at 15 still has the build of a boy several years younger. And his voice has yet to break, which leaves his singing future difficult to chart.

“I have always been the mopey little kid that walks around asking for more food,” he said, cracking a small smile. “The predictable little-kid roles where all you have to do is be cute and sing high notes. I’m sick of playing 10-year-olds.”

Regardless, this 15-year-old has plenty of directed intensity.

“I’m glad he has the interest and the energy,” said Peter Holloway, “because when they are in the teenage years, you want them to have a focus on something. If this gets him through the teenage years and on to college, I don’t care if he ends up doing something completely different with his life. He’s had a wonderful career as a kid. His next step is to turn into a young man.”

For his part, Connor Holloway remains committed and on course. “I want to be a performer,” he said simply. “Whatever that includes.”

Reporter Andrew Adler can be reached at (502) 582-4668.

Unfortunately, you don’t get much advice on building a career, a topic Connor spends quite a bit of time thinking about. Can he make it as a professional dancer someday — or is he sure he even wants to? “That’s what I don’t know,” he acknowledged. “I’m trying to get all the tools that I can. I’ve just discovered a new world.”

But what if Connor decides to pursue a career in dance, and then finds that his body — like many of his peers’ — has a limited onstage lifespan?

While dancing the role of Fritz in the Louisville Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker,” he chatted regularly with his older colleagues. “A lot of the company members retire when they are 28,” he said. What then?

“After that I could do musical theater,” Connor mused. Assuming, that is, he becomes fully versed in the alternate demands of being a singing actor. Which brings him back to his current status as a YPAS student.

Connor is already looking at colleges, especially the University of Michigan, which has a particularly strong theater program. “My mom said that if I break my leg, I’ll have something to fall back on.”

Additionally, next year he plans to take on “the Big Three of dance auditions” — the San Francisco and Seattle Ballets, and the biggest of all, the New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet.

There are other issues to consider. “Another thing with dance is that I have to wait for my body,” said Connor, who at 15 still has the build of a boy several years younger. And his voice has yet to break, which leaves his singing future difficult to chart.

“I have always been the mopey little kid that walks around asking for more food,” he said, cracking a small smile. “The predictable little-kid roles where all you have to do is be cute and sing high notes. I’m sick of playing 10-year-olds.”

Regardless, this 15-year-old has plenty of directed intensity.

“I’m glad he has the interest and the energy,” said Peter Holloway, “because when they are in the teenage years, you want them to have a focus on something. If this gets him through the teenage years and on to college, I don’t care if he ends up doing something completely different with his life. He’s had a wonderful career as a kid. His next step is to turn into a young man.”

For his part, Connor Holloway remains committed and on course. “I want to be a performer,” he said simply. “Whatever that includes

 

© 2009 Courier-Journal.com

William Mitchell wins place at Royal Ballet School

By Richard Catton
The Press
June 27, 2009
[Edited]

 

He gave up football lessons to take up dancing and now an eight-year old York boy has won himself a place at one of the world’s most prestigious ballet schools.

Real-life Billy Elliot William Mitchell was just four when he decided to enroll at a local dance school, but this week he received the letter he had been hoping to get for months and has been offered a place at the Royal Ballet School.

His proud mother, Joanne, said he came to ask if he could go to dance lessons after seeing her god-daughter take up ballet.

The auditions, which took place in April, saw the youngster from Fulford beat 400 other hopefuls to take one of just 14 places. Mrs Mitchell said: “He did the audition in April and we have just got the letter to say he has got a place.

He will be going to Leeds every Saturday for training. When he gets to 10 years old he will audition again and if he gets through that he will go to White Lodge, the Royal Ballet School in London.

“He took it all in his stride. He just went in, then came out saying how good it was.”

William owes much of his success to his dance teacher, Jane Freeman of the Jane Ann Academy, who said she was not surprised to hear he had won a place at the school. She said: “He has been with me for about four years now and gave up his football to join and has never looked back since. He is absolutely excellent and a real gymnast, too, which has helped him. It’s not just showing you can do ballet, it’s all about the structure – but he has that. I’m not surprised he got through because he has a lot going for him. He has a lot of personality and they have seen that he is good.”

William himself is taking the success in his stride. “I’m pleased with the audition but I wasn’t going to go because I didn’t think I was going to get through,” he said. “When the letter came I was very surprised.”

 

© 2009 Associated Content, Inc.

Youth America Grand Prix 2009

Emma Manning reports on the New York Finals of the YAGP (PDF).

Heathfield’s Oliver Cooper offered prestigious place

This is Sussex.co.uk
Kent and Sussex Courier
June 20, 2009

 

HEATHFIELD’S answer to Billy Elliott is kicking his heels in anticipation of studying under one of England’s finest dance teachers. Oliver Cooper, 12, of The Oaks, has been dancing since he was a toddler and it was at a Hailsham Easter dance programme he caught the eye of teacher Mary Goodhew.

 

The former Royal Ballet dancer, artistic director at Elmhurst School for Dance in Birmingham and current artistic director at St Bede’s School, was instantly impressed and offered him a place at the school in September.

 

“Looking at it with a hyper-critical eye for what the future might hold for this boy, he has a tremendous amount of raw talent and had some excellent schooling behind him. He was very disciplined, very positive and a real gentlemen,” she said.

 

“We had some very talented and knowledgeable people at the Easter course. Everybody commented about how talented Oliver was.”

 

Oliver’s mother Karen was delighted with the offer of a place and a scholarship, which comes at the same time he has been accepted into the National Youth Ballet.

 

Ringmer Community College pupil Oliver, who trains for 10 hours a week with Dance Consortium in Pembury and London Senior Ballet, completed a rigorous audition process for accolade.

 

Signed up for the coming season, Oliver will travel to Tring in Hertfordshire for 10 days in August to train before performing at the Assembly Hall in Tunbridge Wells and at Saddler’s Wells in August and September. He was also recently voted most promising ballet dancer at the Tonbridge Festival and performed in the All England finals.

 

“For me the interest that has been taken in him for the last few months is incredible,” said Mrs Cooper. “The pair of us are really overwhelmed, but he is so passionate about his dancing.”

 

 

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David’s long road to the Tony Awards

Michael Posner
Globe and Mail
Photographs by Gary Hershorn/Reuters
Saturday, Jun. 13, 2009

  

Young David Alvarez had never acted before. He had never sung professionally. He had never even put on tap shoes, let alone learned how to tap dance. And although he was fluent in English, it was his third language – after French and Spanish.

“It just seemed like it would be too hard to learn all these new things,” the 15-year-old said yesterday, explaining why, when he was approached to audition for the Broadway show Billy Elliot, The Musical , the classically trained ballet dancer born in Montreal was reluctant.

But despite those hurdles, David on Sunday night delightfully shared the coveted Tony award for best performance by a leading actor in a musical with two other teenagers (Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish). The three boys alternate in the role eight times a week.

He had planned to celebrate with a cheese pizza, but ended up at the post-awards show party, if only briefly. “I’d been up since 6 am,” he said, “and was exhausted.”

Based on the 2000 award-winning film of the same title, and with a score by Elton John, the hit musical tells the story of a motherless boy growing up in a hardscrabble coal-mining community in northern England who wants to become a professional dancer over the sneering objections of family and friends. The New York production got 15 Tony nominations and won 10.

“It’s a dream come true,” he said after winning the Tony. “Trust me, I did not expect it at all.”

 

 

David was a student at the American Ballet Theatre’s Jackie Kennedy Onassis School in New York City when a Broadway casting director saw a magazine photo of him and persuaded him to audition. He beat 1,500 contenders in a nation-wide contest.

Although he had to add significantly to his theatrical skills, David’s dramatic pedigree is bona fide. Before his parents defected to Canada in 1993, his mother, Yanek Gonzalez, was an actress and director with a Cuban theatre company. Young David was born the next year and raised in Montreal’s east end. He started dancing in 2001, when he was eight, taking classes with the city’s Ballet Divertimento.

He continued classical studies with the California Ballet School after the family moved to San Diego in 2003, where his father, David, a Ph.D in biochemistry, had taken a job. Judy Sharp, a faculty member and the company’s ballet mistress, remembers the young David as the complete package. “He has natural ability,” Ms. Sharp said. “He’s strong and athletic, but very limber. He has beautiful jumps and turns, plus he has passion and discipline. And his parents know that to be a professional artist, you have to immerse yourself.”

In San Diego, David competed in the local and then the national Youth America Grand Prix, an international dance competition launched in 1999 by former Bolshoi Ballet stars Larissa and Gennadi Saveliev. He won a full merit scholarship to study at ABT, and his family relocated to the New York area. His older sister, Patricia, still lives in Montreal, and is studying business at McGill University. The family visits regularly. “I love the snow,” David says. “I love the quiet.”

He made his professional debut as the Garland Boy in the ABT’s The Sleeping Beauty in 2007 at the Metropolitan Opera, then appeared at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington as Fritz in The Nutcracker.

But he’d never acted, sung or tap danced until he started training for the Elliot role, a process that required him to spend six weeks in London learning, among other things, how to speak with the distinct north England accent.

His mother helped him with the acting, giving him her own directors’ notes after performances. Nailing the accent, he said, was probably the hardest part. “It was very intense. They later told me they knew from my first audition I would be one of the Billys,” he said, “but they kept it secret until I had finished all my training.” He’s been with the show since it opened at the Imperial Theatre in November.

David knows that eventually he will be too old to play Billy. “When my voice changes, I’ll have to go,” he said. When it does, he plans to continue his training at ABT, where, when he’s not on Broadway, he still takes classes. “But I also want to keep acting.”

His advice for young performers might be taken right from the Billy Elliot script: “Be yourself. Work hard and never give up.”

 

© Copyright 2009 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

 

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How to Prepare for a Summer Ballet Intensive

Nina Amir author of  Mysoncandance recently asked Rasta Thomas for advice on how boys can best prepare for summer intensives.

 
How to Prepare for a Summer Ballet Intensive: Rasta Thomas Offers Advice (Part 1)

How to Get the Most Out of a Summer Ballet Intensive: Rasta Thomas Offers Advice (Part 2)

 

Excerpt:

…Rasta spent his early years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington DC, under Oleg Vinogradov, Rasta made dance history as the youngest recipient of the Jury Prize at the Paris International Ballet Competition in Washington DC, the Junior Gold Medal at Varna at fifteen and the coveted Senior Gold Medal at the Jackson International Ballet Competition when he was only sixteen.

Appearing as a guest artist with the most prestigious ballet companies throughout the world, Rasta has appeared with the Kirov Ballet in Russia, The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, the K–Ballet in Japan, Lar Lubovitch, Complexions and American Ballet Theater in New York, Universal Ballet of Korea, Alonzo King’s Lines Contemporary Ballet in San Francisco, and the Beijing Central Ballet in China to name a few.

In 2007 Rasta debuted his own company, Bad Boys of Dance, at Jacob’s Pillow. This dazzling, high energy, all male company combines the best of ballet, Broadway, Tango, and Hip Hop to showcase male virtuosity at its best. You can read  more about Rasta here.

If anyone knows what boys go through as they make there way in the world as dancers, Rasta does. And if anyone can given them advice about a ballet intensive, Rasta can

- Nina Amir, Mysoncandance, How to Prepare for a Summer Ballet Intensive: Rasta Thomas Offers Advice (Part 1)

 

 
Related article: ‘Bad boy’ becomes global sensation

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‘Billy Elliot’ boys trained at S.D. studio

By Diane Bell
Union-Tribune Columnist
June 11, 2009

 

 The San Diego Academy of Ballet was a winner along with the three young “Billy Elliot” stage actors who took home Best Actor Tony Awards on Sunday.

The Kearny Mesa dance studio, founded in 2001, and its artistic directors, Maxim Tchernychev and Sylvia Poolos-Tchernychev, were mentioned by San Diego actor and alum Kiril Kulish, 15, during his thank-you speech.

The academy also was the early training ground for another of the Billys, David Alvarez. After studying dance there for three years, David left for New York in 2006 on a ballet-study scholarship.

Kiril trained at the academy from age 7 until 14, when he took on the role of Billy Elliot, a motherless boy obsessed with ballet in a rough coal-mining town in England.

“He is exceptionally talented from so many aspects: strength, coordination, flexibility, musicality,” Maxim Tchernychev says of Kiril. Most important, “he dances with his soul. You have to be born with that. It shows on stage when dancers have it. Kiril has such a presence.”

 

 

 

Kiril and his mom, a former concert pianist, moved to New York for “Billy Elliot” from their apartment in University City. His early education was at La Jolla Country Day, but he soon turned to home schooling because of his hectic training and performance schedule in ballroom dance and ballet. He won youth championships in national ballroom Latin dance and the American Grand Prix of Ballet, including its top youth award. Kiril is also an accomplished pianist.

“I was completely in shock,” Kiril said of the Tony Award in a phone interview yesterday. “We were up against such talented actors with so much experience.”

Kiril, David and the third Billy, Trent Kowalik, had prepared an acceptance speech outline, he said, but it all changed once they walked on stage. “It was so overwhelming.”

He is getting lots of calls and text messages from his many San Diego friends, including the Tchernychevs. “I’d have to say Maxim and Sylvia were the people who most influenced me,” Kiril says, “and brought me to where I am today.”

Tchernychev says Kiril trained six days a week at the academy for four to six hours a day. “I had the best time working with him. He takes everything you give him and understands it. He’s like a sponge.”

Kiril has mentioned the academy often during interviews, sparking numerous inquiries from interested students, who currently number about 200.

Tchernychev, delighted with his former students’ success, says, “I already have a few boys 6, 7 and 8 years of age who, in two to three years, could be the next Billys.”

 

© Copyright 2009 The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC

Men at Work

Joseph Carmen
Dance Magazine
June 2009

 Complete Article: Men at Work (PDF)

 Excerpt:

Balanchine said “Ballet is woman,” but that opinion hasn’t deterred men from pursuing their passion for dance training. Dance programs at the preprofessional and university levels have ramped up their curricula in response to current expectations for greater male prowess. Male students are hungry for training that meets their needs, so what are some new solutions for their development? At schools across the country, men are benefiting from their own separate technique classes, as teachers tailor these courses to the current generation of students. In all-male settings, men can focus on technical skills that often get overlooked in co-ed classes, like beats, turns, double tour en l’air, or advanced steps like revoltades and barrel turns

Over time, male dancers have gained more technical breadth, and current training methods need to reflect that. When Boal wasyounger, he remembers, men weren’t required to extend their legs more than about 90 degrees. “Now men are expected to have as much flexibility as women and lift their legs as high,” he says. “The whole concept of stretching is essential for male dancers, and we push for that as teachers. ”With the advent of pyrotechnical feats that male dancers toss off in bushels these days, Stiefel emphasizes doing those gymnastic elements without straining. “People get very caught up in numbers,” he says, “but clean never goes out of style.”

- Joseph Carmen, Dance Magazine, June 2009

 

Do’s and Don’ts: Strengthening your upper body
 

French Clements
Dance Magazine
June 2009

Excerpt:

For full versatility as a dancer, a strong upper body is key. When a teacher or choreographer throws you a high-impact lift, sustained handstand, or swooping inversion, you need to be prepared with enough power and stability to get through it. While hitting the weight machines at the gym is one way to get stronger, improper training can cause muscle tears and that dreaded “bulking up,” which decreases mobility and disrupts your long line. Rocky Bornstein, a physical therapist at Westside Dance Physical Therapy in NYC, says there are plenty of ways to build the strength you need without bulk. Here are some tips for working toward a stronger upper body and effectively using what you already have.

- French Clements, Dance Magazine, June 2009

 

Complete Article: Men at Work (PDF)

 

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Interview with Stéphane Bullion, Paris Opera Ballet

By Patricia Boccadoro
Culture Kiosque

 

 

 PARIS, 26 MAY 2009 — Manuel Legris is the last of Rudolf Nureyev’s impressive rota of étoiles , many of whom became top international stars. Now aged forty-four, he is still a member of the company, albeit as a guest, but when he leaves Paris next year to take over the Ballet of Vienna, his departure will signal the end of an era and the beginning of the next. 

 

For the Paris Opera Ballet has gifted dancers at every level of its hierarchy. Stéphane Bullion, now 28, and actually holding the rank of premier dancer, is one of them. 

The first time I noticed Stéphane Bullion was in the Paris Opera school’s annual show, as the Red Knight in Lifar’s Le Chevalier et la Damoiselle, in 1996. At only sixteen years old, there was something manly about him even then that differentiated him from the other boys. It was perhaps the beautiful, natural way he held his arms together with his special way of moving. And then, complete with cowboy hat and a grin on his face, he left his mark as he partnered Alice Renavand in Western Symphony. It was obvious that this was a young man to be followed.

 

 Nothing, he told me, when I met him between classes at the Palais Garnier, destined him to be a dancer, although he came from a home in Lyon where the arts, music, painting, and books, were very much in evidence.

 

“We were more a family of sportsmen, skiing, bike-riding, hiking, and competing in triathlon”, he told me, “and my father was a marble mason. He sculpted marble and painted. I was in fact, encouraged to take up dance by my mother, who was a psychologist, and who had already proposed lessons to my two elder brothers who would have nothing to do with it,” he smiled. “But I was attracted by the idea and found dance lessons fun. I still do.”

Pushed to apply to the Paris Opera School at 13, he began to take his studies a little more seriously although he had not yet seen a ballet. But then he said, he saw videos of Baryshnikov, Vassiliev and Nureyev, and began to realize he could dance for a living.

 

 “Up until then, dancing had simply been a pastime or hobby”, he said. “After all, at fourteen, it’s hard to really envisage the future, and dancing, then as today, was just a source of enjoyment. Class at the opera is sheer pleasure, the more so now as there is the added excitement of research.”

 

 While one of his earliest roles, as Nijinski’s faun in L’Aprés-midi d’un Faune, a solo normally reserved for older, more mature dancers came at the age of 19, two years after joining the company, the turning point in his brief career came when he was given the title role in Grigorovitch’s Ivan the Terrible, at the age of 23. But that, he said, was the result of a whole stream of events.

 

“When Mathilde Froustey won the gold medal at Varna”, he explained, “Igor Grigorovitch saw her and wanted her to dance Anastasia when his ballet was staged in Paris. Because she was so young and only held the rank of quadrille, she wouldn’t normally have partnered an étoile, and as I had already understudied the role, I was asked to interpret Ivan. I was lucky and it was one of the most exciting experiences of my life. It was just a bit hard when I had to go into hospital for an operation the following day to have a cancerous tumour removed. And then the following year, maybe two, were a little tough with all the chemotherapy treatments.”

However, the magnificence of his performance in the Russian work, which brought out his force and strength and the singular beauty of his jumps, revealing the muscularity and power of the choreography as well as his remarkable dramatic gifts brought him to the attention of the public and he was awarded the A.R.O.P. prize the same year. ”One thing I do remember from this period”, he told me, “was standing alone on the empty stage after I took up my career again. I had the absolute certitude that this was my place. That this was where I wanted to be.”

 

“So much hangs by a thread”, he continued, “and you don’t magically become a dancer by yourself. During my school years I worked a lot with Lucien Duthoit, and now I work a lot with Clothilde Vayer and Ghislaine Thesmar. Laurent Hilaire also helped a lot when I studied the role of Abderam in Raymonda. And during my two years of medical treatment, I had unfailing support from Brigitte Lefèvre.”

 

“It was also Brigitte who brought me to the attention of John Neumeier, suggesting I take over the role of Armand, partnering Agnès Letestu in the filmed version of his Dame aux Camélias, when Hervé Moreau was injured. Of course I was worried as I’d never partnered her before nor interpreted the role, but John put me immediately at ease when we went to work with him in Hamburg. All he said was, “Armand is not a prince”. I never thought I had the profile of a prince as, up until then, I tended to be cast as the “villain” in roles like Rothbart or Hilarion.”

 

Stéphane then spoke of how fortunate he felt to have been given this opportunity to work with Agnès Letestu, albeit at the expense of an injured dancer. He spoke of her great generosity and intelligence, and of the way she encouraged him to move forward, all the while respecting his own style of dance.

“And moreover”, he continued, “dancing with her then opened the way for me to partner her as Jean de Brienne in Raymonda, a role I never imagined I’d dance. And while de Brienne isn’t exactly a prince, but more a heroic crusader, it made me realize that after all, the mentality of a prince is in the head and one should not have a fixed idea of how roles should be danced. .I’m beginning to see that I can approach nineteenth century princes differently.”

 

The idea that Stéphane Bullion is not a prince is bizarre. He is exactly the image of the fairytale prince in every young girl’s dream, and his very appearance in a classical ballet such as Sleeping Beauty would be enough to make anyone jump out of bed and run after him! He is tall, dark and handsome with a mop of unruly curling hair. With his powerful broad shoulders, trim waist, and virile, masculine aura, he is enough to make any girl, never mind a princess fall headlong in love with. In addition, he is technically and dramatically, one of the finest dancers in the company.

His very many qualities have led him to be chosen by many visiting choreographers and those he has greatly enjoyed working with include Kylian, Mats Ek and Angelin Preljocaj, all of whom he considers most exceptional. “There’s nothing showy in their work; everything is very real.  I counted myself very lucky to be included in the cast of La maison de Bernada, which is an outstanding work.”

 

But the young French dancer is also always ready to participate in creations from his friends and colleagues. I have been to many off-beat places, including a theatre near Roissy airport, and Bullion has been there, interpreting works by Mallory Gaudion, by Samuel Murez and by Nicolas Paul. Even when asked at the last moment he has readily given his time, energy and artistry to perform their works, even in front of a handful of spectators. On one occasion, he worked with Paul until almost midnight to perfect a work.

 

Bullion is a dancer of multiple talents, a rarity in any company. He doesn’t copy steps but puts his own meaning into them, filling the whole of the stage even in abstract pieces. His dancing is strong, fresh and clear, and he’s impressive to watch, whether in contemporary or classical. As a prince, peasant or poet, as the villain or hero, his powerful, muscular frame has an ability to adapt and interpret almost any choreography with which he is confronted.

 

 

 Patricia Boccadoro writes on dance in Europe. She has contributed to The Guardian, The Observer and Dancing Times and was dance consultant to the BBC Omnibus documentary on Rudolf Nureyev. Ms. Boccadoro is the dance editor for Culturekiosque.com and last reviewed performances of choreography by Serge Lifar, Roland Petit and Maurice Béjart.  

 

Copyright © 2009 Euromedia Group, Ltd