Q&A

When did you start dan­cing?
I star­ted dan­cing very young, around 4, at the dance stu­dio in Mag­nan­ville, France.

Why did you start dan­cing?
I used to wait for my sis­ter while she was tak­ing bal­let classes. The teacher and owner of the school (Mur­i­elle Maurin) saw me, she pulled me into the class, and said, “We never had a boy, so you will be the first one!”

Which dan­cer inspired you most as a child?
I never was really inspired by bal­let dan­cers but by per­formers such as Michael Jack­son and Gene Kelly, but I appre­ci­ated dan­cers such as former Paris Opera Prin­cipal Patrick Dupont and inter­na­tional bal­let star Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Which dan­cer do you most admire?
Mar­celo Gomes. We were both at the Paris Opera School; he always worked really hard and he climbed with ease the steep hier­archy of Amer­ican Bal­let Theater. He is today a dan­cer to watch.

What’s your favour­ite role?
I do not have a favor­ite one; I believe every single piece I danced was an amaz­ing exper­i­ence, though some are very fam­ous such as Apollo, Oth­ello, Sea Shadow, The Dream… Each piece needed a par­tic­u­lar approach, very dif­fer­ent and unique.

What role have you never played but would like to?
I would love to dance Sparta­cus - I really enjoy epic stories.

What’s your favour­ite bal­let to watch?
I love to watch any bal­let with a story line really, I find the chal­lenge of act­ing while dan­cing very exciting.

Who is your favour­ite cho­reo­grapher?
In order Edwaard Liang, Chris­topher Wheel­don, Lar Lub­ovitch, Yuri Pos­sok­hov, very recently Stan­ton Welsh and of course my mentor Ger­ald Arpino.

Who is your favour­ite actor?
Leonardo Di Caprio for sure, I think he might be close to my age and I got to see most of his movies; he has done a great job in each one. Too often we see act­ors doing a great movie then a very bad one.

Who is your favour­ite singer?
My favor­ite sing­ers are Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jack­son. I have seen both in con­cert they are abso­lutely amazing.

What is your favour­ite film?
I don’t have a favor­ite but I enjoyed being involved in Chris­topher Nolan’s movie The Dark Night.  You can see me for a blurry second in the scene when Chris­tian Bale, alias Bruce Wayne, is sleep­ing in his chair dur­ing a meet­ing. I am his body guard stand­ing right behind him.

Which is your favour­ite city?
Chicago is my favor­ite city, there is so much to do. There is a night life, a beau­ti­ful down­town, and sub­urbs with a lake with gor­geous beaches. The city is grow­ing and has lots of sum­mer activities.

What do you like most about your­self?
I love to take risks and try things; I con­sider myself an entre­pren­eur. My latest fun pro­ject is called the Bal­let Mon­sters (balletmonsters.com) it will be online around March 2013. I cre­ated a line of funny ali­ens and humans doing bal­let. There is also a story line on the web­site with many fun draw­ings and bios. The T-shirts are col­or­ful, fun and very cute.

What do you dis­like about your­self?
I have been very hurt from lies and mis­lead­ing rela­tion­ships. I am a much more guarded per­son today, and can be very secret­ive: I do not trust very easily.

What was your proudest moment?
Per­form­ing at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, my home town. I am from the Paris Opera Bal­let School and I was told I would never dance because of my height, 6’6″. Only a few believed in me: Max Bozzoni, Bern­ard Boucher, Claude Bessy, Ger­ald Arpino and my par­ents. Today I am the tallest pro­fes­sional bal­let dan­cer in the world.

Dan­cing at the Gala of Stars of the 21 Cen­tury in Paris was a huge vic­tory for me, and a clear mes­sage for all the haters: “It is only impossible until it gets done!”

When and where were you hap­pi­est?
I dream and wish to help my par­ents by buy­ing them a home. I do not want them to work any­more unless they want to, or worry about money. They have done so much for me and I want to repay them so badly. It has been on my mind since I have been in the US. Their hap­pi­ness will make mine.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
I have a beau­ti­ful stun­ning girl­friend but I am not sure she wants me to reveal her iden­tity! Regard­less, I will admit I have a spe­cial place for the act­ress Charl­ize Theron.

What is your greatest fear?
I greatest fear is to not be able to real­ize my wish to help my parents.

What is your most treas­ured pos­ses­sion?
I am a col­lector, I love pretty much everything old/antique with a unique value. I have a Jof­frey Bal­let Time Magazine cover from 1968, signed by Robert Jof­frey the founder of the Jof­frey Bal­let; this is priceless.

What is your greatest extra­vag­ance?
I would love to have a muscle cars col­lec­tion, I used to drive a 1967 Fire­bird a few years ago; I really enjoy work­ing on mech­an­ics. I would enjoy spoil­ing myself with a 1970 Dodge Char­ger, 1967 Shelby Cobra, 1971 Cuda and some European mod­els also such as the 1988 Fer­rari Test­arossa and the legendary 1982 Lam­borghini Coun­tach LP500S! But…

What do you con­sider the most over­rated vir­tue?
I often wit­ness jeal­ousy and hate to win against someone play­ing nice and by the rules. I believe in all vir­tues, but I feel today that I am always get­ting the short end of the stick for accept­ing this is true. The major­ity always wins, and it seems that I might be one of the few over­rated dino­saurs believ­ing in virtue.

If you hadn’t been a dan­cer what would you have liked to do?
I would have liked to have been an air force pilot.

What is your most marked char­ac­ter­istic?
My left eye­brow and my height: 6’6″.

What qual­ity do you most value in a friend?
Hon­esty and loyalty.

What qual­ity do you most value in a col­league?
Hon­esty and loyalty.

What is your motto?
“Always give 200%”.

Fabrice Calmels — a biography

Born and raised in France, Fabrice Calmels began bal­let train­ing at three years old. In 1991, Fabrice entered the pres­ti­gi­ous, 300-year-old Paris Opera School, under the dir­ec­tion of Claude Bessy.  Through his train­ing he worked with world-renowned dance mas­ters such as Serge Golov­ine, Gil­bert Mayer, Max Bozzoni, John Neu­mier, Jirí Kylián, Viol­ette Verdy, and also per­formed at the beau­ti­ful Opera Pal­ais Garnier theatre.

In 1998, a 17-year-old Fabrice moved to New York. He furthered his train­ing by join­ing The Rock School, and danced with the Pennsylvania Bal­let. Fabrice grew to per­fect and expand his tech­nique in Amer­ica. At Boston Bal­let, under the dir­ec­tion of Anna-Marie Holmes, he learned the Rus­sian tech­nique with bal­let mas­ters Tatiana Terek­hova and Sergei Berezh­noi, and also the Bal­anchine style at The School of Amer­ican Ballet.

After Septem­ber 11, 2001, unable to acquire his visa to re-enter the United States, Fabrice returned home to France and joined Paris’s most fam­ous cab­aret, Lido de Paris. There he was for­tu­nate to hone his pas de deux skills by per­form­ing the show’s acro­batic pas de deux.

In 2002, Fabrice finally settled in Chicago with the Jof­frey Bal­let, under the dir­ec­tion of com­pany co-founder Ger­ald Arpino, again being exposed to another style of dance. In 2004 and age 23, Fabrice became a lead dan­cer at the Jof­frey Bal­let, not­ably through his prin­cipal role as Apollo. He was also coached by Sir Anthony Dow­ell for the title role of Oberon in Ashton’s A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream. In the fall 2009, he per­formed the title role in the Jof­frey Ballet’s première of Lar Lubovitch’s Oth­ello.

Fabrice has danced sev­eral times for tele­vi­sion and was inter­viewed for the doc­u­ment­ary “Jof­frey: Mav­er­icks of Amer­ican Dance”.  Addi­tion­ally he part­ners with ABT prin­cipal Veron­ica Part and PNB prin­cipal Carla Korbes in guest per­form­ances through­out the world. In 2008 he joined the circle of The Stars of the 21st Cen­tury, becom­ing an inter­na­tion­ally recog­nized artist. Fabrice has also expan­ded into act­ing, per­form­ing the role of Nij­in­sky in the theatre piece MISIA by writer Barry Singer, per­formed at Chicago’s Ravinia Fest­ival. Fabrice has col­lab­or­ated with and cho­reo­graphed for world-famous musi­cian Jean-Felix Lalanne, Autour de la Gui­tare in Paris. Fabrice has received numer­ous awards and accol­ades includ­ing a 2008 Top 20 (Chicago Tribune), 2009 Dan­cer to Watch (Chicago Tribune), 2009 Top 10 Enter­tain­ers by Chicago Mens Book, 2009 best French Artist in the State (by the French Union in America).

Cur­rently, Fabrice is still dan­cing with The Jof­frey Bal­let. He is also focus­ing on cho­reo­graphy, mod­el­ling, writ­ing a dance blog for the Chicago Tribune and main­tain­ing and devel­op­ing Bal­let Mon­sters, his new business.

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