Eric Hipolito Jr.
Can you tell me a little bit about your interest before you started down the path of dance?
“I was a pretty active kid when I was younger. I played the trumpet, I played the piano, I did karate, I did baseball. I think like most boys, I did a little bit of everything. And then at eight years old, I started ballet.”
How you were introduced to ballet?
“PNB came to my elementary school and recruited me when I was in the third grade. I think I was about eight years old at the time...I thought it was fun. I joined with a lot of boys, so it was nice not to be the only boy in class.”
“I don't come from an artistic family at all. I never had any interactions with ballet prior. But, I have always loved being creative. I was always imagining things and drawing things. I've always been an artist, but it wasn't refined until I found ballet—or more like when ballet found me.”
How would you say that DanceChance impacted your life?
“Honestly, I think DanceChance completely shifted the trajectory of my life…It sparked this connection to the arts that I wouldn’t have had without it…It has become my whole identity to be an artist and ballet dancer. For me, I feel like ballet and life are one and the same things.”
How do you think this program shaped you and allowed you to grow as a person?
“I learned to be super disciplined, super respectful of others, and to set goals. I learned all that through ballet.”
When you went through DanceChance, were you one of the only boys that completed the program and decided to continue on with ballet?
“In year one, there were around twenty boys…[but] after three years, it was just me, the last DanceChance boy still standing.”
Why do you think you were the only boy? What was the driving factor that kept you dancing? What could have been done differently to have maintained the interests of the other boys that didn't continue on?
“Now being a teacher and getting to view it all from a different perspective, I think a big part of it was due to my parents being supportive. They never pushed anything on me. They didn't force me to do anything or not to do anything. They let me discover that for myself.”
“I just don't think a lot of parents know much about the arts, people just don't understand the value of it…[and therefore] many kids might not receive the same support from their family that I did.”
What opportunities did you have growing up to attend live performances, specifically ones that highlighted male ballet dancers?
“I didn't watch a lot of performances when I was younger. Even when PNB gave me tickets [to the Nutcracker], I didn't think much of it. I honestly didn't know what I was watching…It wasn’t until later in life that I began to gain that appreciation."
"It was when I went to summer courses across the country and got to see and dance alongside other male dancers that I actually began to see what being a male ballet dancer was all about.”
In your experience, what do you think is the best way to engage young male dancers?
“Making ballet really fun is so important at a young age because a lot of talented kids won't stay if it's not fun. You have to almost trick kids into thinking that stretching and doing a hundred crunches is really cool.”
“As a teacher, I really try to educate them. When we're waiting to start class, sometimes we’ll watch a rehearsal and I'll tell them, 'Look at that guy, they're doing three, four, five, pirouettes. That's what we're working towards. That's why we’re trying to perfect that tendu or that passé.’”
What inspired you to return to PNB to teach the outreach program?
“At the end of my three years at Ballet Arizona, I really wanted to come back home to PNB—a place that I take a lot of pride coming from...I felt at that point that I had gained a huge wealth of knowledge as a teacher, as a dancer, as a performer, and I wanted to give that same experience to other students. I wanted to create that spark that DanceChance was able to give me to anyone who wants it, and wanted to bring it back to Seattle and my home, PNB.”
“I’m here to give my students confidence, give them that little bit of a boost, give them five minutes that another teacher is not giving them, I will do that for anyone...But I'm really doing it because I love ballet so much. This is my passion. This is all I want to do. This is all I can think of doing.”
As a teacher, if you could reflect one thing onto your students, what would it be?
“I you're going to do something, do it 110%...even when times are hard, you have to push when you don't want to, and you have to push harder than the people next to you because you love it just a little bit more than everyone else"
"I always ask myself: 'Why am I getting this? Why am I here? Why do I want to become this?' You have to know your ‘why,’ and then whatever you do, do it with full conviction….[for] once you know your why, everything else will guide you. You'll have your northern star from there.”
You mentioned earlier that your family was very supportive of your pursuit of ballet. How was the rest of your community? When people at school found out that you were in DanceChance or that you were pursuing ballet, how did they take it?
“I was really fortunate that I never got bullied very harshly at school, but almost every other boy that I know has in one way or another been bullied…[however] there were times when a kid or two would make a comment that I didn't appreciate, like 'ballet is so easy or ballet' or 'ballet is just for girls.' But, I’d just think to myself, ‘Oh, man, this kid doesn't know what he's talking about.’”
“I came from a Filipino-American family...and I was told that I was always on my tiptoes at a young age, and my grandfather would always comment, ‘You better stop doing that. You can't be on your tiptoes all the time, or you're going to do something like ballet.’ He didn't mean any disrespect to me. But right off the bat, my grandfather had the impression that ballet was for girls…[an perception that] stems from our society and our culture, where certain ideas are very deeply ingrained.”
Did your grandfather’s perception ever change? Did he ever come around?
“He never did. He never did. And that's like most of my family. As I got older and began dancing principal roles…he just wasn't interested. And I think again, that comes from it being cultural...The ballet world is not what I grew up immersed in...[my family] just didn't understand the significance of [ballet]. I didn't understand that either until DanceChance.”
How do you think we, as an industry, in the broader community, and individually, can work to support male ballet dancers?
“Unfortunately, I think the biggest thing is society and how we're structured in this country. The National Endowment for the Arts just keeps lowering each year…Our government doesn't really see value in the arts, and that is a mistake.”
“It's also our culture, the lack of knowledge, and the stigma of ballet that’s the issue in America…Why is ballet in a country like Cuba so different? It’s because they grow up watching a lot of dancers like Carlos Acosta and Julio Bocca…[but in America] if you don't see ballet on TV like other sports, why would you decide to do that versus playing basketball?”
"I think the solution lies in the leadership of major organizations and their desire to continue helping…[and] advocating for diversity, equity, and access…and that is why programs like DanceChance are so great.”
