The Wild Reed: Dancer Calvin Royal III: Stepping Into His Light

Tuesday, September 08, 2020

Dancer Calvin Royal III: Stepping Into His Light

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Where does the time go? . . . I meant to write this post much sooner than now! And yet here we are, and so here I go . . .

The cover story of the July issue of Dance Magazine celebrates Calvin Royal III, a dancer I've come to greatly admire.

In her piece entitled “A Royal Arrival: The Singular Elegance of American Ballet Theatre's Calvin Royal III,” Marina Harss writes, in part, the following about Royal's dance style.

Royal – tall, lanky, with a silken, elegant way of moving and a gentle and open stage manner – would seem ideally suited to play Romeo [groundbreakingly paired with Misty Copeland's Juliet]. There is a quiet persuasiveness to his dancing. He doesn't show off. Instead, he imbues each movement with an aura of beauty and lyricism. As Kevin McKenzie, the artistic director of the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), puts it, “Calvin has an inner light.” . . . His ascent [in the dance world] has been gradual, even painstaking at times. You get the feeling he has earned every role, every opportunity through determination and the integrity of his dancing, but without ever losing that grace that makes him such a joy to watch onstage. He is hungry without being driven by ambition.

Harss also makes the following beautiful observation on how the professional and personal aspects of Royal's life come together in a very special way.

The poetry in Royal's dancing is related to his deep, subtle musicality; music flows through him. It's not surprising that his partner, ABT pianist Jacek Mysinski [pictured with Royal at left], is a musician. Their work spills over into their downtime; Mysinski practices at home, and they talk about the ballets in the rep. When Mysinski is playing from the pit during a performance, Royal can feel his presence, he says: “It's almost like having him at my side, almost like a partner.”

Interestingly, the metaphor of light in relation to Calvin Royal III was used by the dancer himself, as quoted in Gia Kourlas' October 2019 New York Times piece on Royal in the lead role of George Balanchine’s Apollo. (above).

“For Calvin,” writes Kourlas, “the ballet – which Balanchine considered to be his turning point as a choreographer – resonates with his own artistic journey. 'It’s this young god that goes from adolescence to stepping into his light,' says Calvin. 'As a dancer that’s something that I see for myself: I feel like I’m really just stepping into my own domain and embracing that.'”

Following, with added images and links, is more from Dance Magazine's recent cover story on Calvin Royal III.

Royal didn't get his start in ballet until age 14, at the Pinellas County Center for the Arts at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, Florida. Before that, he had been a serious piano student. It was his grandmother Linda, a social worker and a lover of classical music, opera and dance, who first encouraged his artistic tendencies. When he was 10, she bought him a Yamaha electric keyboard for Christmas. “I'll never forget it,” she says. “He called me one Sunday morning and said, 'I want you to listen to something.'” On the other end of the line, he started to play Beethoven's Für Elise. He had learned it by ear.

Royal excelled at his piano studies, but also loved to move. For a few years, he took part in a local production called The Chocolate Nutcracker, which included hip hop, West African and other styles of dance. One of his fellow participants encouraged him to audition for the high school dance program. Without ever having taken a formal dance class, he was accepted.

There was so much to learn, he sometimes felt he might never catch up. “I think it intrigued him that ballet took so much effort,” says Suzanne Pomerantzeff, his main teacher at Pinellas. The intellectual challenge drew him in as much as the physical.

That focus carried him through some difficult times at home. In his sophomore year, he injured his back in a car accident and had to sit out ballet classes for several months, excruciating given he had only just begun to make progress. He would take notes on the side, “visualizing dance in my mind,” as he puts it. Dance became a lifeline, a source of steadiness and hope.

In his junior year, he competed in Youth America Grand Prix, where he was spotted by Lukens and Franco De Vita, of the JKO School. “I was immediately struck by his elegance, his musicality and his coordination,” remembers De Vita, who offered him a scholarship.

After a year in the school and two and a half in ABT II (now the ABT Studio Company), he got into the main company, initially as an apprentice, at 21. He was still getting his technique where he wanted it to be — quick footwork and beats were a challenge for his long, lithe physique. (“I wanted to move like those little guys,” he says, “but it wasn't easy with these legs.”)

But he also wondered whether he fit the typical mold of a principal dancer at the company. “It was only when I came to New York that I started to become more aware of race in ballet,” says Royal. In Florida, his ballet classes had been mixed. In New York City, less so. When he first joined ABT II, he overheard other dancers from the company making snide comments about a fellow African-American dancer there. “Oh, well, I guess they needed a black girl,'” he heard one of them say.

He began to wonder whether he might never be given the chance to prove himself as a leading man by McKenzie and the rest of the artistic staff. “Will they see me as Romeo or Albrecht? Not only because I'm black, but also because I'm gay?”

At the time, he says, the company culture was different: “There was this sense of machismo, and this idea that the guys had to look sort of like football players.” Ethan Stiefel, José Manuel Carreño and other powerhouses in that vein were company stars. Just a few years earlier, in 2003, the company had put out a video, Born to Be Wild, that depicted its male dancers as testosterone-driven guys who rode motorcycles and posed as matadors.

Since that time, much has changed. Fewer international stars come through ABT; a new generation of home-bred principals has risen to the top, and they are anything but cookie-cutter. (Only one, however, is black: Misty Copeland [pictured with Royal at left].) Rigid notions about what Romeo or Siegfried should look like have finally begun to relax, to the benefit of the dancers.