Roman’s empire

PLAY THE PART Zhurbin, second from right,
has his pick of the Jardin.

Photograph: Lois Greenfeld

That sucks.
Right. It was $200 a week for corps de ballet and I was like, “Can you live on that?” And he said, “You won’t be wealthy but you will survive.” I said, “Let me wait.” I wanted to finish the program and to see that hope was gone, first. The same week, Rebecca Wright, who passed away, gave me a solo. She told me, “You have the ABT potential, but you have to work harder, you need to stop doubting yourself.” She gave me the variation from Paquita, and I remember rehearsing that solo and I couldn’t get it. It was pretty hard for me. And we had one rehearsal where Kevin McKenzie came in and he coached me and another boy on our variation. First, I ran it with John and it wasn’t too good. There were a couple of bumps and he wasn’t too pleased, but when Kevin came in, God smiled upon me. Everything happened. Every little step happened, and John said, “Somebody must like you up there because that was good and he really liked you.” A couple of days before the show, John took me aside and asked me if I wanted to come in for Studio Company. I couldn’t believe it.

How long were you in the Studio Company, now known as ABT II?
A year. They told me I wasn’t ready but then they took me into ABT. I always had to catch up. One of my teachers said, “You’re going to find yourself weaker, technically, than the other boys, but you can take them with artistry.” That stuck with me. I started seeing things in principal dancers, especially in Julie Kent. She has so many little touches. That was fascinating to me, and once I started getting character roles, I used that. I was still so green, but I had an idea about the characters. I saw my way. I tried to be a little more artistic in shows. I danced a lot in Studio Company and I enjoyed it. I remember in April, they came in to ask us to do the Met season as apprentices. Kevin said, “I want you to do the Met, but when it’s over I want you to come back to Studio Company.” It’s exactly what I wanted to do because I felt myself improving a lot so I said, “Great.”

Did you like the Met season?
It was awesome, so beautiful. We did Bayadère and I did Warriors, which is just walking onstage, bowing, standing and walking off, and I messed that up somehow! I think I looked out in the audience as we were supposed to be leaving the stage and I was like a deer in the headlights. I got stuck.

So you danced the whole season?
Not a lot, but little roles. It was a test drive. Then after the Met, we had meetings again and they said, “We want you in the company as an apprentice.”

What was your big break?
The Moor in Petrouchka. is right up my alley. Not the principal stuff, but the main coachman—all that character stuff is what I did as a kid. So when I did that, the whole company was like, Oh my God, you’re so good at that. I guess Gary Chryst [the former Joffrey dancer who staged the ballet] saw that and he let me do the Moor. It was a miracle.

What did you learn from performing the Moor?
The rehearsals were really hard. Everyone’s watching all the time and you never want to fail. I was nervous. Every time a door would open, my focus would go to that door, and Gary took me aside and said, “You can’t do that. You have to be in a zone. You can’t see anyone.” I started to work like that, just to block everything out and to make my own decisions. He helped me a lot, and now when I do something, it’s just me. I really don’t care about anybody else but what’s happening there. After that, they gave me a lot of character roles, which is weird for a young person to do I think. I was 21, doing Romeo’s father; Juliet’s father came later. I started to like those parts because they opened another side of me where I didn’t feel limited. In ballet, I can’t do that many turns. I can’t jump as high as another dancer; I can’t do big cabrioles like Herman Cornejo, but I felt maybe I could make this work. Now I feel free, I feel at home and the gestures come naturally. In dance, I have to go, What comes next? Here, I’m just myself as a character. I don’t really think about them. I’m just that person.

Do you work with Victor Barbee a lot now?
Yes. He’s actually a genius. The way he sees things—I still copy him a lot because we do a lot of similar roles. I watch him all the time to see what he’s going to do next. He showed me how to think, how to place myself, how to be big onstage, how to take control. He has a very good eye for that and, just like Julie, has those little touches—he has those little touches in his dancing, in his character roles. He makes it something else too. They never told me to do things; they suggested. “You should feel this here, you should think about this,” and sometimes what I think is happening is probably not the right way. Like, I have to look at a dancer like I hate her and that’s not always how it is. I would do something and he would say, “That’s good, but it’s not quite correct.” He showed me a lot of those things. You can’t always go with your intuition because the ballet was done a long time before you and there are certain parts where you have to be exactly in the moment. I found that a challenge because I would just wander off into my own little world. But I watch him all the time. I look up to him and I steal from him. I am what I am now because of him.

You’ve danced with Kent and Alessandra Ferri. As a young dancer, how do you cope?
Well, I wasn’t sure if I could do it. In Manon, the ballerina is a prostitute and I buy her and there’s a moment on the table when I have to take control. With Julie—I’m pretty young. She looks at me, and I’m like a puppy. I can’t do anything. She said, “Come on!” Alex just grabbed me; she took control. I was like a puppet next to her. [Laughs] I watch dancers like that a lot. In my first performance with Alex, I was playing the part, but I was really watching to see how she interacted with me. I took that and applied it to Julie. Now I’m not afraid. If I want to take her, I take her. I started to learn that you should really just dance for yourself. You’re here. So stop thinking about what other people think and do it how you feel it.

What was going on when you made that shift?
It was gradual. With character parts, I never doubted myself. But with dancing, since I’m a lefty and everything in the corps de ballet is to the right, I had problems staying with the dancers. So now when I dance Pirates in Corsaire, that means a lot to me. When you do character roles, you’re by yourself, like a principal. It’s a lonely world. As a teenager, I always wanted to be part of the corps de ballet guys. I love to do character roles, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a really cool feeling of a family when you get to do gypsies or pirates or aristocrats. I would have nights off when I wouldn’t dance, so I said, “I wanna dance more,” and they said, “Fine.” I realized that it was dancing that was making me happy, so I started to really work. I began to be a bunhead. [Smiles] And I think it’s important in this field. You have to be in the field. You can’t have distractions.

How is Jardin aux Lilas going?
I’m dancing with Julie Kent, and it’s awesome. Dancing with her is always phenomenal, and this is a role where she’s in love with another guy but she’s marrying me and I’m having a fling with another girl. The girl in my past—there’s a lot of tension because she still wants me to be with her, but I don’t want to be. This is a strong, nasty character; it’s not soft. He’s a hard-shelled person. And with Julie’s character, I think he senses that she doesn’t want to marry him, but it doesn’t really matter. And the ballet ends where she reaches to the guy and I fold my hand and walk off with her, with my fingers tapping slightly. As a character role, it’s really neat. It’s a short ballet—18 minutes—but it’s really cool. It’s one of my favorites now.

What else are you dancing?
A corps role in Pillar of Fire. It’s another cool ballet. I’ve never danced it; I’m doing one of the “sexy boys.” I’m doing the corps in Theme and Variations for the first time, too. I’m very excited to be part of the group. The ballet is mostly girls. And then the last 15 seconds you come out [Huffs and puffs] and you’re slapped in the face with ballet. You’re so out of breath when you finish, like, What happened? I blacked out. [Laughs] And Leaves Are Fading, which is my favorite.

Why?
You get to experience that part of the relationship that Tudor experienced, and John Gardner and Amanda McKerrow are such awesome coaches. They bring Tudor back. I never worked with Tudor, but they somehow tell you little things and it makes sense. They tell you to be yourself, that it’s not always sad. My generation didn’t get to work with Tudor, so it’s really nice to see people bring him back to life and I feel a little piece of Tudor in me through those people. That is really nice. I feel like he’s in the room. Creepy, but he is.

Are you excited about the appointment of Alexei Ratmansky as ABT’s artist in residence?
I know he’s the director of the Bolshoi. That’s about it. I’ve never worked with him. But I’m excited because it’s always exciting to have a new eye. Anything is possible when a new person comes in. You get to start fresh again. It’s like auditioning all over again, but I’m in my element now. I’m not afraid to dance. I saw Flames of Paris on YouTube, and it’s character! I was like, I don’t want to do the principal, I want to do that guy. There’s always that question, Will he see it? There’s always that doubt. [Smiles] But you can’t think like that.

ABT performs at New York City Center Tue 21–Nov 2.