The new kid on the block

People made fun of you because of ballet?
Yes. At my elementary school there was no problem, because I went to a school from K through sixth grade of, on average, 14 people in a class. There was no criticism. Seventh through ninth grades were rough. And in tenth grade, there was a huge switch. Out of nowhere, everybody started respecting what I did.

What happened?
My school principal called me in and said, ‘We’re having this program where some kids in school that do extracurricular things are going to speak in the gymnasium.” Whether or not to do it was a big decision for me. I had received a lot of criticism for dancing. I said, “I can’t be embarrassed for what I do if I’m going to do it for the rest of my life, and there’s nothing embarrassing about it.” I remember seeing all those people in the gym and feeling very insecure about speaking about ballet as a male. But after I did it, everybody was so interested. We spoke to different classes during the day and during one period I was talking about how I had gotten into these summer programs where we danced for seven or eight hours a day, and that there was a possibility that I was going to move to London the next year. And my gym teacher, a very charismatic, big guy who used to tease me too a little bit about ballet, stood up and said, “I’d just like to say that Cory is one of the best athletes in the school. I know he’s going to go really far with this, and I’m so proud of him and I’d like to congratulate him and I give him a rough time because I want him to join the tennis team, but I know this is going to be something he’ll take who knows how far.” It really touched me. People who had really given me the hardest time in my class were obviously kind of abashed. They were like, “I didn’t realize that you took it so seriously.” They were embarrassed that they had given me such a hard time for all those years, and they apologized. They said, “That’s really great…you’re going to London?”

That’s the magic word: You’re getting out of here?
Exactly. You’re leaving our little town? If I had left in ninth grade and everybody had given me a hard time and I hadn’t really turned everybody’s opinion around, that would have been sad. It was nice to leave on that high note.

You said that people gave you a hard time. Did you get into fights?
I never got in one fight, but very close. People threatened that they were going to beat me up. I got pushed against the locker a couple of times. I got into a lot of fights with my brother, but never people at school. If you got into a fight, it was bad; you got suspension, and my parents were really strict about that.

You did move to London in 2001 after winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Ballet School. It was through the Youth America Grand Prix competition?
I did and that was lucky because I did terrible in that competition. I did pretty well in the regionals in Connecticut, and then I got to the semifinals in New York. I did well in my contemporary solo; that’s when I found out I got the scholarship to Royal. And then I went out and did Black Swan—performing that because of José—and I choked onstage. I wasn’t ready. I did terribly. I didn’t perform it all, and I didn’t get into the finals. I was distraught after that. I was crying, and I remember getting changed and leaving my dressing room and going out into the hallway. I saw my parents and my dad goes, “Cory!,” and I ran away from him because I was so embarrassed.

Did you forget the steps? What does an experience like that teach you?
I didn’t forget the steps. When you perform you need control. Different people get different kinds of nerves and I get a lot of nerves. At that time, I was still trying to find a way to control them. I was asking different people what I should do. I don’t think you should do that as a dancer—I think you need to find it yourself. Some people say, “Take deep breaths and don’t watch the people that perform before you,” and other people say, “Make sure you’re not doing it for yourself—do it for someone else and then it’s okay, because then you can just enjoy what you’re doing.” And none of that is true. You want to do well, obviously; I find now that I just understand that I’ve been doing it in the rehearsal, and I can do it and when I go out onstage. I just have to quell that emotion, that electricity. Because if I let it get the best of me… At the YAGP, the problem was that I got off the music. I was ahead of it. I wasn’t listening and I wasn’t looking at the audience at all, and so when I went to my last double tour down the center and I was off my leg. I just wanted to be offstage. As soon as you think that, it’s over. I think that was the last performance I had before I went to London.

What was the training like at your school in Long Island?
It encouraged individual focus. At ballet schools, people put their focus on you; they’re so meticulous about the work you do. It wasn’t like that with my teacher, Valia Seiskaya. Class wasn’t so much about placement and how you worked the feet and your port de bras; it was more about your approach to dancing in general, and that’s what she taught me the most. The strength of approach: When you go for it, you go for it. She was into turns and jumps. She wanted me to be masculine. She never said that, but it was just the way she trained me. I formed a very close relationship with Valia and her husband, who was very involved with the dancers as well. I would stay at their house during performances because I lived an hour away. She was funny—when she gave you a correction, it wasn’t like, “I think you should…” She’s Russian-Greek. She would say, “What is that? What is that?” I found it funny, and that’s why I developed this way of taking people with a grain of salt. Not taking them too seriously. She would yell at me. I would talk a lot in class; I would get kicked out of class. I don’t know—for some reason, I felt like I had to balance my work with social stuff. She would always yell at me for talking, and then there would be times when I wouldn’t be talking and she would yell at me and I’d get really upset. She really cared about me.