I’m very excited to introduce Ballet for Men readers to Joel Myers. Joel is a fantastic dancer, teacher, and all-around great guy. I look forward to the insight he will provide. Joel explains…
My name is Joel Myers and I am going to be posting on Ballet for men from time to time about what I’m up to in the dance world as well as interviewing a few of the male dancers that I have had the chance to meet over the years. But first I guess I should talk a bit about myself. I began dancing in the summer of 1997 with a friend of mine. We had seen the movie, Lord of the Dance, and thought that we should give dancing a try.
I received the majority of my training at the Evergreen City Ballet under its founding artistic director Wade Walthall who was a former principal dancer with PNB and the Dutch National Ballet. The other teachers who had a major impact on my training include Jeremy Conner (ballet) a former dancer with PNB who trained at SAB, Maynard Stewart (ballet) who was a former principal dancer with PNB and the National Ballet of Canada, PJ Lee (modern & ballet) who trained at SUNY Purchase as well as the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and danced with the SD Prism Company, and Alice Yearsly (jazz & ballet) who trained at NCSA and performed on Broadway. While at ECB I had the opportunity to perform principal roles in Mr. Walthall’s Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Giselle, Swan Lake and Nutcracker as well as many of Mr. Walthall’s original works.
I am currently a principal artist with Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater, a contemporary dance company based in Seattle, WA, and have been with the company since 2005. With Spectrum I have had the chance to perform the work of Mr. Byrd as well as the choreography of Merce Cunningham, Gus Solomans Jr, Zoe Scofield, Olivier Wevers, Kiyon Gaines, Cyrus Khambatta, and Daniel Wilkins, performing at Seattle’s Moore theater as well as at New York’s Dance Theater Workshop, Italy’s Spoleto Festival and in commissioned work for Notre Dame and Duke Universities.
In addition to performing with ECB and SDT I have had the opportunity to work as a guest artist with Seattle Opera, Tacoma City Ballet, Ballet Bellevue, DASS Dance in NYC, and Olympia’s Ballet Northwest. I have also taught and choreographed for the school at Spectrum Dance Theater, the Evergreen City Ballet, the Northwest School, and Tacoma School Of The Arts.
I currently teach at MLK Ballet and Tacoma City Ballet, both in Tacoma, as well as for Harbor Dance in Gig Harbor. For the last few summers I have produced, choreographed, taught for, and performed in my own annual workshop/performance entitled “The Joel Show”.
If you are also interested in contributing, drop an e-mail to david@balletformen.com
{ 1 trackback }