Winter 2016-2017 Ball et Review From the Winter 2016-2017 issue of Ballet Review A Conversation with Marcelo Gomes by Michae l Langlois © 2016 Dance Research Foundation, Inc. 4 Brooklyn – Susanna Sloat 5 New York – Elizabeth McPherson 7 Stuttgart – Gary Smith 9 Boston – Jeffrey Gantz 13 Bhutan – Karen Greenspan 15 Stuttgart – Gary Smith 16 Saratoga Springs – Jay Rogoff 18 New York – Harris Green 19 Toronto – Gary Smith 21 New York – Karen Greenspan Michael Langlois 36 23 A Conversation with Ballet Review 44.4 Joan Acocella Winter 2016-2017 Darrell Wilkins Editor and Designer: 30 New Jewels in Berlin Marvin Hoshino Michael Langlois Managing Editor: 36 A Conversation with Roberta Hellman Marcelo Gomes Senior Editor: Don Daniels Elizabeth Kendall 54 44 A Conversation with Associate Editors: Joel Lobenthal Mikko Nissinen Larry Kaplan Vincent Le Baron Alice Helpern 54 Forsythe’s New Manifesto in Paris Webmaster: David S. Weiss Don Daniels 60 Crystallization: Balanchine’s Copy Editor: Naomi Mindlin Imperial Ballet Photographers: Alastair Macaulay Tom Brazil 30 74 Serenade : Evolutionary Changes Costas Francis Mason Associates: 120 Richard Kuch on Graham Peter Anastos Robert Gres kovic Francis Mason George Jackson 122 Helen O’Brien on Graham Elizabeth Kendall Paul Parish 125 London Reporter – Clement Crisp Nancy Reynolds 128 Music on Disc – George Dorris James Sutton 132 Check It Out David Vaughan Edward Willinger 60 Sarah C. Woodcock Cover photograph by Ann Ray, Paris Opera Ballet: Ludmila Pagliero and Germain Louvet in William Forsythe’s Blake Works I . Marcelo Gomes in Alexei Ratmansky’s Firebird . (Photo: Rosalie O’Connor, American Ballet Theatre) 36 ballet review A Conversation with Rolling on the floor and expressing ourselves to Madonna and Michael Jackson and what Marcelo Gomes not [laughing]. The teacher said, “I want you to come back.” So I went home and said to my parents if I Michael Langlois could please go to this class and they said, yes, which was really incredible for a Latin fami - BR: You live in Hell’s Kitchen? ly in Brazil. They could have just said, no. They Marcelo Gomes: Yes, I really love the neigh - could have denied it then and there but they borhood. One, I’m a big foodie. I love explor - were open and so okay with me going to take ing restaurants and new stuff is always open - a dance class. ing all the time. And, in general, I like the vibe. Then a few years later, when I was about You get the tourists from Times Square, and seven or eight, another teacher saw me in one Broadway dancers and actors are going to their of our shows – Helena Lobato, a former prin - shows in a hurry [laughing]. There are the lo - cipal dancer from the Theatro Municipal in cal people who support the area bakeries and Rio – and she said she thought I had the pos - coffee shops. It’s a mixture of people that I re - sibility to dance classical ballet. I trusted her ally enjoy, plus it’s in the middle of Manhat - and my family trusted her so I started taking tan so it’s perfect for me. classes with her and her son. BR: Do you walk up here to the Met? We wore little shorts, you know? And little Gomes: Sometimes, yes, but I took a cab this white socks. We took ballet almost every morning because I was running late [laugh - day, and then she would take us to her house ing]. And I have a bike. New York is becoming after class and put on a VHS of all these a little more bike friendly, which is nice. amazing dancers: Misha and Fernando and BR: Let’s talk about your life in Brazil be - Julio Bocca and Nureyev. We would see them fore you came to the States. do Corsaire and Paquita and Giselle and that Gomes: I was born in Manaus but my par - really fed us both to keep on going back to ents moved us to Rio because they wanted more the studio and keep trying that pirouette or opportunity and a bigger experience for my that arabesque. brother, my sister, and me. Manaus is a city I think my knowledge of classical ballet now, but at the time it was a much smaller came very early as far as the music. I knew all town. When we came to Rio I was five and the music from Giselle at a very early age. We that’s when I discovered dance. spent hours at her house. It was crazy. Then I BR: How did that happen? left Helena and went to a bigger school in Gomes: My family always had dancing Brazil. around the house. My parents loved to put BR: Did she encourage that or was that your music on and let everybody dance. It was a idea? very festive household. My sister used to Gomes: One of my teachers was studying dance. I always went to her shows, but I never journalism with my mom and my mom told looked at her and thought, oh, I want to do her about me and this woman suggested I go that. Apparently, one time when I went to pick to this larger school, Dalal Achcar. So they took her up at her gym class there was a musical me there and I met this French teacher, Alain theater class going on and I opened the door Leroy, who started working with me and it and the teacher said, come in, and I did and I was better because he was a man and that was started taking class, dancing with all these important in my development. kids. I didn’t know what we were doing. BR: Was there a boy’s class in that school? This interview took place in the dancer’s dressing Gomes: No. It was just me and all the girls room at the Metropolitan Opera House in May 2016. [laughing]. I was there for about three years, ©2016 Marcelo Gomes, Michael Langlois 37 until I was thirteen, and then one of my part - Paris Opera Ballet School. I spent a year there ners sent a tape to the Harid Conservatory in and then I came and joined ABT. Florida. She was auditioning for the school. I BR: That’s a lot of upheaval. wasn’t. She was accepted but at the same time Gomes: Yes, I had to do the same thing in the people at Harid saw me and wanted to France that I had done in Florida all over again. know who I was and they offered me a schol - It was crazy, but also an incredible experience. arship. It’s an amazing place. They only accept I learned French. I had almost finished my ac - thirty kids a year at Harid. ademic work for high school but I had to BR: Yes. It’s run by Victoria Schneider, Ju r - con tinue on correspondence when I went to gen Schneider’s widow. [Jurgen was a ballet France and that was difficult. master at American Ballet Theatre from 1975 When I came to New York to join ABT in Au - to 1991.] That transition must have been in - gust 1997 I still had two more courses to com - credibly difficult at age thirteen. plete for my diploma. I remember getting it Gomes: Yes, it was really scary. I didn’t speak from Harid and coming in to work at ABT and any English. And, as you say, I was just thir - saying, hey, I graduated today! And somebody teen and I had lived a very sheltered life in said to me, yeah, great, now can you learn this Brazil. I knew how to take the bus by myself part please? [laughing] and go where I needed to go, but I never learned BR: Did you have any interest in getting your how to tidy up my room. In our family we had college degree? a nanny, like many people in Brazil do, and she Gomes: No. I think I did the right thing. In cooked and lived in our house so I never learned fact, I remember my last year of correspon - how to do these adult things that you’re re - dence thinking, I can’t wait for this to be over quired to know when you leave home. I had to so I can focus on my dancing. Going from high learn really fast. school to a professional ballet company is not We lived in dormitories at Harid and they for everyone. There are some great colleges provided meals and we had academic classes, for dance in this country, and my view has public school in the morning. That was im - changed a lot now. I think it is possible to be - possible for me. I had to learn as I went along. come a professional dancer if you go to col - I like contact with people. I feel like I’m a lege. friendly, open person, and I needed to make In fact, I think many people join companies friends very quickly and learn English as too soon. Mentally, you have to be ready. You quickly as possible, so I just did that. have to know how to work for yourself, be - I knew I was in the right place in the stu - cause probably you are the best dancer at your dio and that Harid was the right place for me. school and then you come to ABT and you’re I had a wonderful ballet teacher, Olivier Par - doing the Mazurka in the corps.