Men in Tights: Real Men’s Stories about the Impact of Ballet on their Lives (Part 2)

All we need is music, sweet music. There’ll be music everywhere, there’ll be swingin’, swayin’ and records playin’ and dancin’ in the streets.

Martha & the Vandellas

Inspired by learning that Rahm, aka “Rahmbo” Emanuel was a ballet dancer, I wrote a piece about other macho men whom we know in our community as lawyers, doctors or Indian chiefs who have also been ballet dancers. These are lane changers who have incorporated everything they learned at the ballet barre into successful second acts. I was eager to know what attracted them to dance in the first place and what impact ballet had on their careers post-performing their double tours.

I interviewed a number of these supremely fit men (I know – tough duty) to understand how ballet developed their skills and personas for their lane changes as they moved on with their lives. In Part 1, I introduced you to Dr. George Takashima—Chief  of the Medical Staff of Children’s Hospital, Eddie Lazarus—big  time lawyer and Federal Communications Commission chief of staff, Aresen Serobian—web entrepreneur, and Eric Rochin—builder and architect. Each one credits his ballet teachers and training for successful careers far removed from the ballet studio.

Discipline, perseverance, team play, resilience—these are all required attributes to make it both on the stage and in the real world. As a result, dancers make great hires, as long as the work is fulfilling and affords a sense of completion, what Dr. Nakashima called “making my mark.” 

As you read the stories below, you will discover that Rahm Eanuel is not such an anomaly after all.

Training for Life

Mathew Diamond is an Emmy award winning director, with credits including Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, So You Think You Can Dance, several Great Performances shows for PBS, as well as an Oscar nomination for Dancemaker, a film about the choreographer, Paul Taylor. His early career as a dancer/choreographer and dance company artistic director gave him “a staggering level of discipline to raise his talent to the level of craft and hopefully to mastery.” He continues to search for refinement, scope and depth in his work. While he cops to being a perfectionist, this double-edged sword is balanced by learning that there is a deadline—when the curtain goes up, you are done obsessing and can only do your best.

He enjoys a wide-ranging career because he refuses to be pigeonholed. He conveys self-confidence which comes from practicing double pirouettes a thousand times until he finally could do it—and convincing others he could do it. “I don’t want to rest where I was because, what’s the point?” he says racing off to search for locations to shoot his next project.  

The Thinking Man’s Dancer

“Nothing is forever and no one is irreplaceable.” We would all be better off if we recognize this truism as we navigate through our careers from key player to retirement. For dancers, this inevitable transition comes painfully early, so the smart ones prepare well in advance for life after the applause dies down. It helps if you are curious by nature and study what goes on outside the theater.

This can be difficult as Jukka Aromaa, former Principal with the New York City Ballet and Finnish National Ballet explains. “In the ballet world, you are totally scheduled. Everything is arranged. When is ends, you suddenly must take control of your life. It can be quite a shock. Jukka was better prepared than most. He had grown up in the Finnish countryside working with his hands in the fields and learning carpentry. In Helsinki, he studied psychology. In New York, he studied theater at Julliard and earned an Arts Management degree from N.Y.U. His international travel in the ballet world where there are no language barriers taught him how to get along with all kinds of people.

He had never bought into Balanchine dictate, “Don’t think. Just do it.” He was always thinking, searching for the essence in his character and challenging himself to find the unexpected way. After his farewell performance in his favorite role, Eugene Onegin, Jukka moved to L.A. so that his wife could have her turn in the driver’s seat. Leslie Carothers had retired from the Joffrey Ballet and studied landscape architecture. So Leslie designed gardens while Jukka installed them. Now Leslie heads up the Colburn School dance program. Jukka combines teaching there with his garden installation and carpentry work.

Like most dancers, Jukka doesn’t do anything half-way. Working in nature is “something real,” and he doesn’t stop working until the work is done—and done well.

Making Everyone Look Good

John King is president of a management consulting firm which focuses on leadership development and strategy. His claim to fame is in working with corporate teams to enhance their performance based on a process he learned during his long career as a dancer. John studied ballet and competed in ballroom dancing before moving on to TV variety shows. He danced till he was 42 with only 3 weeks of unemployment—largely, he says, because he could “go to his left” and was a great partner. “My job as a partner was to frame the star and make her look gorgeous,” he says. Working with dozens of choreographers, he learned from the best of them how to create an environment where everyone has his moment to look good. From this, he developed his notion of “the ecology of leadership” which he applies today in his consulting business.

Yes, I Can

Michael Higgins is a successful photographer and competitive cyclist. He is a veteran of TV’s Fame, dozens of variety shows, Disney specials, film, and commercials. He studied ballet but is primarily a jazz dancer, the kind of work we now call “contemporary.” As a child playing Pop Warner football, he developed a spinal injury and was told he could only do a “sit down job,” which was an unacceptable sentence for this hyperactive kid. He took up dance stretching and movement which allowed him to pursue a lucrative career in the dance world. “I had a great life,” Michael says. Like his father who was a truck driver, he found grace in doing the work. “With great effort comes great reward,” he acknowledges, and “half the job is showing up.”

Follow Your Heart            

Not every dancer can earn a living in his chosen profession. Before the days of hip-hop and music videos which provide good employment for macho young men, dancers often had to moonlight as waiters in order to pursue their addiction to taking class. And make no mistake, it is indeed an addiction. There is something supremely fulfilling about the mind-body-spirit connection that a dancer experiences.           

Lawrence Bender is the Academy Award winning producer of An Inconvenient Truth who is also the producer of Quentin Tarantino’s movies and many others. In his film career, he finds ways to mix pure entertainment with good storytelling to make a difference in the world. The son of two politically active school teachers from the Bronx, Lawrence came by his passionate advocacy through their DNA. Though he has produced such iconic films as Reservoir Dogs, Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill, he claims to being “a producer by trade—but in my heart, I’m a dancer.”

Lawrence took up dance in college where he studied civil engineering. His girlfriend invited him to her dance class because they needed boys to do the lifts and jumps. His sport at the time was karate and it took him several months to put on tights, but Lawrence became besotted with dance. “It was all so physical and strong—I fell in love spiritually for the first time in my life.” This love affair continues to this day.

There was never any doubt that Lawrence would finish his studies in math and science, graduating with high distinction. All the while he took class and performed ballet, modern and even Flamenco. As soon as he could, he moved to New York to be a dancer. Always broke, he waited tables to afford his classes with Maggie Black, where he felt privileged to be among the likes of Kevin McKenzie and the top modern dancers from companies led by Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor. “It was relentlessly tough,” he remembers, “but I felt the joy emanating from the souls of these extraordinary dancers.”

He got a scholarship to dance with Louis Falco and performed at Jacob’s Pillow, but for the most part, he lived the life of a starving artist. After ten years, he recognized the inevitable – his body couldn’t take the injuries and long recoveries any more. Devastated, he looked for another art form in which to invest his passion, and took up acting. Even then, he would use his dance movement training to unlock his voice and emotional memories.

While looking for acting jobs in L.A., he supplemented his income by working as a grip and other movie set jobs. Assistant directing led to producing and ultimately to partnering with Tarantino. According to Lawrence, “A producer must be strong in adversity and strong in willpower—and know he will do it ultimately.” Kind of like a dancer.

The life lesson he learned is to follow your heart. “I would never have achieved what I’ve done if I had followed the safe path and became a civil engineer. There is no safe job—so why not follow your dream? Otherwise, you die.” As an actor and a dancer, the important thing is to make a choice. “It may break your heart, but it will always lead you to something else.”

So Fathers—Tell Your Children

Edward Villella is now Artistic Director of the Miami City Ballet. At 71, he is still considered “America’s Studliest Ballet Dance" (New York Magazine, 1/21/09.) Flattered to have been an inspiration for many young men over the years, Villella recalls his own ballet initiation, “I got knocked unconscious by a baseball when I was kid. My mother wouldn’t trust me playing sandlot ball anymore, so she hauled me off to my sister’s ballet class.” Villella instantly took to this art form, but as soon as his sister quit, his father, a truck driver in New York, sent him off to Maritime College where he lettered in baseball and was welter weight boxing champion. After graduation, Edward declared that he wanted to become a dancer. “My father wouldn’t speak to me for a year.”

But on opening night of his second season with the New York City Ballet, Villella’s parents watched from the wings as he danced in three of the pieces. Tears of pride streamed down his father’s face. “After that, my father became an enthusiastic ballet fan, handing out my picture to all his buddies in the garment district.”

You fathers out there: Let that sink in for a minute.

For more about changing lanes to new careers far afield from the one you trained in, read Changing Lanes: Road Maps to Midlife Renewal  (Radom Press,2008). And send us your inspirational story in the comment box below ….

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