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Dancers: From Europe to New York

The Universal World of Ballet
New York City Ballet Seminar
New York State Theater
New York, NY
February 6, 2006 

by Dale Brauner
copyright ©2006 by Dale Brauner

New York has long been the destination for those wishing to make a mark on the world.  The ballet world is no different.  More top-flight dancing is happening elsewhere these days, but companies still find that a New York season is a benchmark.  An excellent season in New York for a dancer can lift them into the strata of galas and guest gigs. The New York City Ballet finds most of its dancers from within its own school, the School of American Ballet, but does have a few “outsiders” in its ranks.  This season’s seminar, “The Universal World of Ballet,” focused on three dancers born and trained in Europe.

The seminar moderated by Joan Quantrano, director of volunteers and program resources at NYCB, featured principal dancers Sofiane Sylve and Joaquin de Luz and soloist Ask la Cour.  The dancers strode upon the New York State Theater stage in casual clothes.  The French-born Sylve looked chic in black leather pants and high-heeled boots, a olive-colored open-necked sweater, and a black sparkly scarf.  She sat, rather slumped in her seat with legs wide; a posture if done by an average person would look vulgar. Instead, the striking dancer appeared impossibly elegant.

All displayed a lively sense of humor and an ease with each other. With la Cour hobbling on with a cast on his left foot, the first order of business was to learn how the 24-year-old injured himself while rehearsing the prince in Peter Martins’ “Swan Lake.” While going through the prince’s variation in the “Black Swan” pas de deux, he snapped two ligaments in his left ankle on December 27th. Two weeks later he had surgery and he expected to be back dancing by the time the company has its summer season in Saratoga.

Quantrano asked the dancers questions, mostly involving their backgrounds and the transition of coming from Europe to New York. What’s it like to come here as an established dancer?

Sylve: No matter where you come from this place is a shock. Just because of the schedule, the rep., the amount of performances. The energy. I thought I was working hard before I got here, but everything is relative. You can break your limits.

De Luz added: “Coming here from American Ballet Theatre, I knew it was going to be a challenge. I never imagined what would happen. I joined right before a tour. I was supposed to do “Symphony in C” third movement on a Saturday night. We opened on Thursday. Peter came to me and said ‘There’s a change of plans. Benjamin Millepied is out and I want you to do “Jeu De Cartes”’ Choreography by Peter Martins, music by Igor Stravinsky.  You know, at ABT, you dance to Tchaikovsky and you don’t have to count, it’s all 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.  But with Stravinsky, it’s a 9, a 2, an 11 and a 3 before you enter.  I had to learn it from scratch in a day and that was my debut with New York City Ballet.” 

Sylve exhibited her independent nature early by choosing to study ballet in native Nice, rather than go to Paris.  “Paris Opera asked me three times to join the school, but it didn’t feel right for me to leave the south of France to where I didn’t know anybody. It was also a time when you joined that school that you would live there and I just couldn’t see myself living in that glass building and going home only once or twice a year. It was just not for me.”

In 1990, that sense of self brought her from France to the ballet company of the Stadttheater in Karlsruhe, Germany as a first soloist. After three years, at the suggestion of former NYCB dancer and George Balanchine repetiteur Patricia Neary, she joined the Dutch Nationale Ballet of the Netherlands, where she worked her way up to first soloist in 1998. In the Netherlands, Sylve danced a varied repertoire, including lots of Balanchine ballets, full-length classics and even Frederick Ashton’s “Cinderella.”

Sylve’s interest in improvement had her seeking out training a variety of sources: Maria Aradi, former Bolshoi Ballet star Boris Akimov, and past Paris Opera Ballet ballerina Noella Pontois.  She first appeared as a guest artist with NYCB during the 2002-03 winter season, undertaking several “big girl” roles in “Kammermusik No. 2,” “Serenade,” “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” “Symphony in Three Movements” and “Western Symphony.”  She joined the company as a principal dancer the next fall.

Sylve didn’t make any demands when she first appeared with the company as a guest artist.  “I just presented myself as coming here to learn as much as possible because there’s so much you can learn here. Peter (Martins) had a very good idea of what he wanted me to do and I just left it in his hands.” 

La Cour, who speaks with an accent that sounds part Danish, part Bronx, was more familiar with NYCB and its dancers than his fellow panelists. He said came because when he was at the the Royal Danish Ballet School in Denmark, it was very popular to come to SAB to study and to want to dance at NYCB.  He knew “the company needed tall guys.”

Not only had he attended SAB during the summer, but he studied in Denmark with former NYCB dancers Adam Lüders and Colleen Neary.  And as the son of Lise LaCour, Peter Martins’ first wife, Ask was the half brother of NYCB principal Nilas Martins. 

Ask joined the Royal Danish Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in 2000. Two years later, la Cour became a member of the NYCB corps de ballet and was promoted to soloist in May 2005.

De Luz’s path to NYCB took more turns. The Madrid-born De Luz went to bullfighting school for a year and played soccer.  His mother dragged his brother and him to a ballet school—the Victor Ullate School of Ballet—to keep them out of trouble. The academy also produced top ballet dancers such as American Ballet Theatre’s Angel Corella, Carmen Corella and Jesus Pastor, London Royal Ballet’s Tamara Rojo and Jose Martin, and Munich Ballet’s Lucia Lacarra.

He danced with Victor Ullate Ballet Company from 1992-1995.  In March 1996, De Luz won the Gold Medal at the Second Nureyev International Ballet Competition in Budapest, which allowed provided the money he needed to travel to Philadelphia to join the Pennsylvania Ballet as a soloist.  One year later he became a member of American Ballet Theatre, where he specialized in gypsies, Bronze Idols and best friends.

“I always wanted to come to America. I was fascinated by Balanchine and the way Americans moved. I made it here to the States. I got invited to join the Pennsylvania Ballet, which has a great repertoire, lots of Balanchine. It was a great year.

All mentioned the speed of the NYCB dancers.  The men point out the partnering in the company’s repertoire is so complex, but that having a great partner such as Martins around helps. 

La Cour was asked about his interest in dramatic roles. “I love dramatic parts a lot.  Not only is there a story, but if your turns are not so good you can make up for it with acting!”

A question regarding performing Peter Martins’ “Swan Lake,” which is streamlined and doesn’t use mime, was directed at Sylve: “That’s not really what people go to see in “Swan Lake” The mime doesn’t really take you any place in the ballet. It’s about my relationship with my partner, the story that is being told at that time, and to have some sort of direction with the people surrounding you. The story is the same (which ever version you do), the passion and the emotional level that you get to is exactly the same whether it’s an abstract version or there’s clowns and horses in the first act.

On preparing “Swan Lake” she said: “There are two aspects. There’s the story. And the physical part—it’s very hard on your back.  Not only in the working hours (of rehearsal), but I try to get my body ready because right from your first entrance it’s very hard on the body.  The rest is done in the studio, dancing with your partner and whoever is there—your ballet master.

On preparing roles: De Luz: You do look at other people, at videos, but you have to make it your own. And for me, even if it’s not a story ballet, I always have a little story in my head. It’s something my teacher told me—every movement has a meaning.  So you have to really think about what you’re doing. 

On doing Villella roles, such as the lead in “Tarantella” and Oberon in “Midsummer Night’s Dream”:

De Luz: There’s a tape of Eddie doing “Tarantella” and it’s quite amazing. Of course, Eddie is like a god to me. I think because of my passion for dancing and for being on stage, there are roles that suit you more. But if you think of the people who did those roles before, you would never do any of them because you are afraid of following in the footsteps of giants.  But by doing them, and working on them, and making them your own…that transmits to the audience.

All three were asked about living in New York City:

La Cour: I came here and was expecting to get really homesick. But not in this case.  I came and I started to work the second day I arrived.  I felt very welcome. People were standing with open arms. Of course, it’s really exciting to live in the city that never sleeps. I stayed with one of the former members of the company, Stuart Capps, who was on tour. I stayed there the first month.  Then I sublet an apartment across the street from the theater. Then I got together with one of the dancers here, Ellen Bar, and we moved in together.

Sylve: There’s always that energy that’s very striking. Wherever you go, you can go to Paris or to London, and you’ll never have that energy. There’s something to it that gets very addictive, but that you sometimes have to get away from it, even just across the river for a day. That’s something I like to do. I need to have some time away from it to actually enjoy it again, because sometimes it’s a bit like a rollercoaster—it just takes you and throws you around and you don’t realize it. With our schedule, you just can’t always see everything you want to see because you have work. But there’s some much you can do here, it’s overwhelming.

De Luz: I love rollercoasters, so I love this city. When I first moved to the states, I lived in Philadelphia for one year. I was coming from Madrid, which is as cosmopolitan as New York in a different kind of way. So I was completely depressed. Nothing against Philly, which is a beautiful city, but coming from Spain where we do everything so late, in Philly at 6pm, the streets were completely empty.  When I finally moved to New York, it was amazing.  I’ve traveled a lot in the United States and this is the closest to any (European) city you can get. You don’t feel like a foreigner in this city. It’s a great feeling. 

Sylve: It’s rare to find real New Yorkers. I know there are some real New Yorkers in the audience but it’s rare to find people who didn’t come here from someplace else.

“Okay, let’s do a test, who’s a real New Yorker?” De Luz asked. When most of the audience raised their hands, he said “Oh, wow. Never mind.”

New York City Ballet is notorious for its grueling schedule, but the dancers manage to find some release from dancing. Sylve likes to cook, with De Luz backing up her claim of being an excellent hostess. La Cour enjoys playing the piano, something he has in common with his half brother Nilas. Their mother had wanted to be a piano player, but had to stop, so she wanted her children to play.

La Cour admitted to watching lots of movies while getting over his left ankle injury, including the James Bond marathon on TV. Sylve later teased him by saying that when she was injured she didn’t watch James Bond but went to the theater to see the ballets.

With questions opened up to the sizable audience, one woman wanted to know how they all learned to speak English so well.

Sylve: Practicing. I learned English in Amsterdam because everybody speaks English. 

De Luz:  It was really hard. At Pennsylvania Ballet, they were to telling me to stand at center stage and wait five counts and I couldn’t understand what they were saying.  I got taken out of a lot of ballets, so I had to learn.

Did they consider themselves dancers or athletes?

De Luz: There is a part of what we do that is very athletic, but the advantage the athletes have is that they don’t have to look pretty.  I love sports and I admire athletes.  I was watching a basketball game and was amazed out how high they can jump.  I could go to the gym and lift waits to learn how to jump that high but it wouldn’t look pretty on stage.  In ballet, every step has a meaning.  In basketball, every dunk doesn’t have a meaning.

Did dancers cross-train?

De Luz and Sylve both said they worked out in the gym—lifting weights and running for him, swimming and martial arts for her—but La Cour made the usual excuse of not having enough time.

How about that tough schedule?

Sylve: Most European theaters have block programming. You would do 15 "Swan Lakes," then the opera steps in. After that, you would have a triple bill with Balanchine, a new work and a premiere. So you always have gaps in between where you can have down time, which you don’t have here when the season is on. You’re pretty much under pressure the whole time because there’s a show every night.  Monday (a dark day at the theater) is the day you try to get everything done. Not quit a free day, but a “must do” day.  We have message therapists at the theater, but when you’ve been standing six or seven hours, they don’t give you new legs.

All felt their co-company members are inspiring, but De Luz did feel the need to single out former principal dancer Peter Boal “because he did work with me and coached me.  Many of the roles I do, he had done before and he really made the effort to work with me in the studio. It was an amazing experience. He’s an incredible dancer and an incredible person to work with.”

The trio was asked when they first learn about Balanchine.

Sylve: My very first experience with Balanchine was with Patricia Neary. That was my first time coming across Balanchine, but there was something about the choreography that felt very familiar even through it was the first time doing it. There you go, 10 years after that you join the home company. So, you have these coaches going around the world setting these ballets—you have companies across the world doing “Serenade”—trying to keep them alive just like we’re doing here.

De Luz: Patricia Neary was my first, too. I remember I was 16 and this woman was coming to the studio in the morning. She would put her pointe shoes on—she was probably in her 50s—and eat three oranges and stand up and do the whole ballet in pointe shoes at actual speed. I was completely taken by her. I thought it was completely wild. I thought “What do they give these people and how do I get some?”

Sylve:  She just came to set “Apollo” in Amsterdam in September and she still had same oranges, same pointe shoes, same perfume.

What is the difference between dancing Balanchine with their home companies and at Balanchine’s home company?

Sylve: The difference is actually being in the home that was built for all this. There are a few people responsible for all that. And here we are today sweating every day to keep it alive. You also get to see the people who the ballets were made on. You think “Wow, it was made on you.” And then you get to hear all the stories and what was going on while it was being made.  Our only regret is that we didn’t have a chance to meet the man.  We do have a lot of respect and we’re tying to keep it alive as much as possible.

De Luz: There’s still so much of him in this theater.  And you people (gesturing to the audience), too. When I came, I kept hearing “Mr. B. Mr. B. Mr. B.” and I kept thinking, “Who is this Mr. B? He must be somebody on the fourth floor.” And then it finally clicked, I’m a little slow, that it’s Mr. Balanchine.  We still hear about how he would be standing in the first wing and watch. He’s so much a part of this place in every little corner.  It’s incredible to be a part of it.

And with feelings like that, they became New Yorkers in our eyes.

Photos, all by Paul Kolnik:
First: Sofiane Sylve in Peter Martins' "Swan Lake."
Second: Ask la Cour in "The Four Temperaments."
Third: Joaquin de Luz in "Tarantella."

February 20, 2006
copyright ©2006 Dale Brauner
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last updated on February 20, 2006