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Philip Martin-Nielson has overcome more than most. He took his first ballet class at six, three years after being diagnosed with autism. After extensive therapy and the rigor of dance—it was his secret ingredient—Martin-Nielson has found his calling as a ballerina, made possible through the all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. The company, which excels in ballet and comedy and is led by Tory Dobrin, showcases a new production this season: La Naïade et le Pêcheur. In it, Martin-Nielson, who at 20 is the youngest in the company, graces the stage as Giannina, the true love of a fisherman.
I know you were young when you started dancing. How young?
I was six.
Why?
I was diagnosed with autism when I was three, and I was always obsessed with dance. Anything movement-related I loved. My mother tried to put me in sports when I was younger even though I said I wanted to dance; she wanted to see if I could do anything else besides dance, maybe so I wouldn’t get bullied. But when I was six, she finally let me do my first ballet class. I stuck with it ever since.
Where did you train?
I trained at the Dance Design School, but I had extensive private coaching with Natasha Bar, [former New York City Ballet soloist] Ellen Bar’s mother. She really gave me my foundation, my real training; she was my competition coach. Under her I won the gold medal at Youth America Grand Prix. She gave me professional direction even while I was at SAB and still to this day she gives me professional direction.
What does she specialize in?
She is from the Ukraine and danced at the Odessa Ballet Company. Her teaching style has a lot of Russian style, but very nice American movement. Speed. It’s something of her own and what I like to call really good taste. She takes the best of all worlds in her teaching and makes unique students. I was really lucky to have her as a coach because she brought a lot out of me—a lot of personal qualities as well.
You immediately loved ballet. What did you love about it?
I don’t really know. To this day, I’m a big fan of anything that’s creative. I’m also a costume designer and I do ballet costumes. My company is called Tutu Philipe, which I started when I was at SAB; I made costumes professionally when I was 17, and I have also worked in dance retail. When I was 16, I was the costume-alteration draper for Grishko in the United States, and I also worked a little bit with Freed of London. I’m a pointe-shoe fitter. Anything to do with the creative process. It’s all from building something. When you make a costume, you decide on that design, you decide how it’s going to play out. With a pointe-shoe fitting you either work with a dancer for whom it’s their first fitting or a professional. You have to see how it works: You start from the ground and then you go up to where the endpoint is. I like those processes. Same with ballet. The other day I just debuted as Odette.
I heard! You aren’t dancing Swan Lake in New York, are you?
I don’t think I am, but I am doing The Naiad and the Fisherman [La Naïade et le Pêcheur]. I really love it. It’s very difficult and challenging. I have to really get into the role of Giannina; she’s the fiancée of Matteo, and he catches a naiad, or a water nymph, in his net and falls in love. Throughout the ballet, she comes and goes, but we can’t see her; only he can. Toward the end of the ballet, she sees her shadow and becomes human, and we all see her and welcome her into our village.
What happens to Giannina?
[Laughs] We haven’t really decided that yet! It just ends. But it’s a really challenging role, with really, really hard steps and beautiful music and costumes.
What is so difficult about the steps?
They’re back-to-back. It’s a lot of stamina, a lot of petit allegro, a lot of turns: My coda is échappé fifth, double pirouette, échappé fifth, double pirouette at the front [of the stage] and that’s what I’m worried about at the Joyce because the light line is at the end of the stage. It’s a good ballet. The variation is very difficult. There is also a lot of moving; it moves everywhere with a lot of places to breathe and a lot of places to [Starts panting]. There are adagio sections. I suggest people maybe see it a couple of times. I feel like the first time I tried to watch the ballet on video, there was a lot of choreography happening and I needed to watch it a couple of times to see the story through it. When you understand the whole story, it is a beautiful ballet. We’ve been working on it for almost a year now.
What has the process been like?
It was exciting. We had no clue what roles we were dancing or what the ballet was. We hadn’t even seen the ballet before they started staging it. We were in Sweden; we had a day off, and they decided to have a rehearsal day to start the ballet. They started with the corps section and my name hadn’t been called. I was like, Am I not in this ballet? What’s happening? And then it was time for my entrance, and I was thinking it would be with other people, but I was by myself and I was one of the leads.
Did you know that you would be playing a female or a male lead?
I assumed I was doing a female lead. I haven’t done a lot of male roles with the company; I’ve done one of the corps in Valpurgeyeva Noch [Walpurgisnacht] and Gran Pas Classique [Grand Pas Classique], which also used to be my competition pas de deux. A lot of the roles that I worked on with Natasha are roles that I do now.
How long did you train with her?
I started training with Natasha when I was 10. We worked privately from 11 to 15. Those years were really my molding years; the goal was to get me into a professional school, a school that she knew and sent students to and a school that was familiar with her. We chose the School of American Ballet. It served me well; I was there for my three years, from 15 to 18. And then I joined the Trocks.
You said you competed. At what age did you start and what did that do for you? Were you comfortable onstage?
I was 12. I have always been a comfortable performer. I love the stage. Even when I’m not onstage, I still think I’m a performer. I live every day as a performance! [Laughs] She put me in the right state of mind for a competition. A lot of competition coaches say, “You have to win, this is what has to happen,” but she brought a different approach. We wanted to win, and we eventually led up to a gold medal, but she brought me to a state of mind where you go into competition for the exposure and for other companies and schools to see you and to see you grow over the years. Also, it was to have an opportunity to perform and to be on a professional stage, which has helped lead to other decisions in my training of where to go. For my summer courses during my time at SAB, I went to Chautauqua [Institution], and I got to work with Patricia McBride, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Mark Diamond. I got to do principal roles on a professional stage with live orchestra and a sold-out 5,000-seat amphitheater. It was an incredible experience. I did the lead in Donizetti Variations. That’s a real bitch, one of the hardest roles I ever did in my life. But Patty had the confidence that I could do it, and just knowing that helped me to push myself.
What is she like as a coach?
Wonderful. She’s so sweet, but she’s still really honest. She would give notes; sometimes they were harsh, but she would say them in the nicest way that you would understand it was a way to progress and not a way to be mean. She brought the right essence to that; also, for my last summer at Chautauqua, I knew I was joining the Trocks. I had my contract, and I was going to perform with them a couple of weeks after the summer program was over. She worked with me privately on female variations and pointe work. She wanted to make sure I was ready, and she was really happy to see that I was going into a place where I could grow and become an artist because I’m a very eccentric person—I’m very big on the creative process and I get a little bit bored with regular ballet. That’s also why I started costuming; I was bored with ballet. I have made costumes for Misa Kuranaga from Boston Ballet, Luciana Paris from ABT.
What do you remember about winning Youth America Grand Prix?
It was an exciting experience. The first couple of years, I got to top 12 when I was doing the semifinals in Connecticut. The last year, which was also the year Natasha won outstanding teacher, I was in juniors. I was 14, and I was doing two ensembles, two pas de deux, one contemporary variation, the Bluebird variation and a Coppélia variation. The ceremony came and my name was announced as the gold medalist. It was a really proud moment. Amanda Hill, my partner, who was older than I was—she was 18 and I was 14—and I did Grand Pas Classique together. The judges said we were the loveliest couple in the competition, and she also got gold in her division.
Then you went to the School of American Ballet. Were you living in the dorms as a full-time student?
Yes.
What did you perform in the Workshop Performances?
I was never in Workshop. I was always injured before Workshop would happen. I was the student at SAB that they weren’t sure where I was going to go. I can do the Balanchine type of aesthetics, but I feel I can do it more as a ballerina than as a male dancer. When I first told them I was going to audition for the Trocks, they were happy.
How did you become a Trockadero?
I auditioned in September of my graduating year, because there was a flyer in the student lounge at SAB that said the Trocks needed dancers. After class one day, I went up to [former NYCB principal and SAB faculty member] Jock Soto and said, “I have a company audition coming up, and I was wondering if you could give me any advice?” He said, “What company?” I said, “Trockaderos.” He said, “I thought so.” [Laughs] He asked if I was prepared, and I said, “Yes. I’ve been doing pointe since I was 12.”
Wait—back up. How did you start?
[Laughs] I started doing pointe when I was 12. Ever since I was six, in my first class, the artistic director from the Dance Design School said, “He has a personality, and we can definitely see him with the Trocks.” I was always interested in the pointe shoes, the ballerinas, the tutus. I loved the glamour side of ballet. Amanda would give me her dead pointe shoes. I would do stuff at home. Eventually I got a pair and a teacher at the school said, “You can try it on, but if you look unstable, I’m taking you off,” and she didn’t take me off pointe for the whole class. I’ve been doing pointe ever since. It’s helped me as a dancer—even as a male dancer. My turns. Surprisingly, pointe shoes helped double tours.
How?
When you’re on pointe, you have to know how to use your feet and how to jump and make sure that you have that same shape in the air as you have when you’re on pointe. That develops a lot of strength and creates a center of balance, so when you do a double tour, you just go up and you go down. Same with a relevé.
Did it affect your turnout?
Yes. It made it stable, stronger. I don’t have the best turnout in the world, but I’m able to hold what I have and I’m able to be stable with what I have.
Do you think boys should go on pointe as a part of training?
Definitely. I think if the school is willing and open-minded enough, boys can start pointe when girls start pointe. That’s what I did and it’s what helped my training and gave me the confidence to do what I do: become a ballerina. And when I do the male roles, I can still do them manly because I understand the extremes. Some male dancers, when they don’t have that experience to know from one extreme to the next, get confused in the middle. And if you don’t know where you actually stand, you can’t really progress. I’m not saying that’s the golden rule, because we have so many male dancers that are fabulous and have never put on a pointe shoe in their life, and we have amazing female dancers who have never done a double tour in their lives. But there are a lot of teachers that will have female dancers do the male roles and that really makes them strong. Very strong.
So you knew early on about the Trocks. When did you first see the company perform?
I’ve never seen the Trocks perform. Only through DVDs. I even said once that I would never join the Trocks because I was so confused about what to do: There was so much of this right or wrong way to be, like, Men don’t do pointe. Men do pointe. It was very confusing as a student; I wasn’t able to have a stable ground. I’m so happy with the decision I made. If I was in a regular company, I wouldn’t be dancing these roles. I would still be in the corps, and with this company I have the opportunity to see the world and to perform these legendary ballets that I’ve always idolized as a student. And the roles, like in Naïade and Odette and Paquita. I’ve even done a lead in [Go for] Barocco. They’re completely different roles, but they’re so challenging and they really bring me to a sense of, I’m making this happen from the influences I have in my life. All the influences in my life go onstage in that one moment and it’s all in the breeding.
Did you audition?
It was company class but there were a couple of people auditioning. I also auditioned with Carlos Hopuy, who’s in the company. We were the last ones to make the cuts, but we both couldn’t be hired right away. I was too young. The policy of the Trocks is that you have to be 18 and have graduated high school, and I was 17 and hadn’t graduated yet. But Tory [Dobrin, artistic director] said he was very interested in me and wanted me to take class when the company was in town. I remember four days before graduation, I got an email from Tory who said, “You can come take class with us for the next four days.” I still didn’t have a contract, and I went to [co-chairman of the faculty] Kay Mazzo’s office and I asked permission to take class. After barre—the first day of those four days—I got my contract and started rehearsals that day.
Whoa! Were you a little freaked out at that point? Did you have a plan about what you were going to do?
I had no clue what I was going to do. I had no real idea of what I was getting into. I had no expectations, really. I had never really danced with a professional company before that. I had worked with professional companies like North Carolina Dance Theatre—now Charlotte Ballet. I was an apprentice for the summer courses at Chautauqua with them, so I got to work and perform with the company. That’s different from what the Trocks is. We are always on the road. No company functions like we do. We function very closely and professionally in a different professional way.
How so?
We are men in dresses onstage. We have to take that into account. We have jokes in our show, we have comedy. We have to make sure our ballet base is as solid as possible before we can add jokes onto them. We have to see what jokes look better on certain people than other people. [Trockadero veteran] Paul Ghiselin worked with me on Dying Swan. We get to do our own choreography for that, which is our biggest artistic freedom in the company. I did mine after Maya Plisetskaya, which I learned personally from Leonid Kozlov. He worked with me on that when I was at school. I remembered that choreography and the patterns and I added my jokes onto that. At the first rehearsal, Paul took out maybe 90 percent of the jokes.
Why?
His reasoning was I have a young body, I look young and certain jokes look better on an older dancer. If there are nice moments that can just be there, there’s no reason why I should throw them away just for a joke. That’s working in a different professional way. We use jokes, so we have to figure out what goes into this, what gets taken out, how do we change this, how do we make this our own and unique to us?
When do jokes work for you and your way of dancing?
In the new ballet, I actually have no jokes for my part. There are certain jokes in Swan Lake for the entrance of Odette. I piqué arabesque; some dancers have certain jokes where they kiss the shoulder or something. For me, I exaggerate. Some ballerinas will just do a swan movement, but I make mine more extreme. It’s still Russian ballerina, but taken to that extreme, and that’s when it makes it almost appropriate.
Tory is really into the Soviet style of ballet. You didn’t grow up with that, but do you have an appreciation for it?
I do. Natasha made sure I still had that base. But I’m able to work at an American speed. I’m not the Russian elite ballerina of the company, but I’m not the Balanchine ticket, either. I’m very much my own dancer, my own artist. I feel personally that if people see me dance, they can see the multiple trainings that I’ve had and how I combine them into one.
When you started with the company, you joined immediately. Did you go on tour directly?
No. I had those rehearsals and then went to Chautauqua for my first summer course. I was still a student. In September, I got the physical contract in my hand and started working. We had two weeks of rehearsal, and I had to learn all the ballets. I believe there were eight; I had to make sure that three were ready to perform for our two-week run at the Folies-Bergère. The first year with this company is the hardest. It’s very difficult and, emotionally, for me, I wasn’t sure if I was going to pull through, but Tory gave me the confidence and also [company member] Chase Johnsey really helped me. He joined when he was very young as well, so he understood how it was for me. He took me under his wing and taught me the recipe of work at Trockadero.
Which is?
Being alert. The answer is always yes. You’re not there to please, but you’re there to work and to do your job. There should never be an excuse for you not to do your job at your fullest ability. It’s strict but still playful. I want to be in this company for a long time and to eventually be the next Bobby [Robert Carter] and the next Chase. I would love to be that, and to achieve that I have to prove, not only to myself but to my coworkers, my ballet master, my boss and my audience, why I belong here and why I want to keep the status of the company alive.
Why do you want to do that so badly?
I trained all my life to be a principal dancer somewhere, and this is the perfect place for me to be able to do it.
Did it take a while for you to figure out your makeup?
Yes. Chase helped a lot. I also see what drag queens in the city do, so I’ve had a lot of influences. This is also another creative process that I love. Makeup for me is the most relaxing part of the day: I get to spend time with me in the mirror before a show and I just feel rejuvenated. It calms me down and gets me ready for the show; even if I’m having a bad day, after I do the makeup that bad situation almost feels better.
Do you have similar makeup for each female role?
I do a very similar face. I’m very committed to my work and every aspect of it, so when it comes to the makeup I made sure I made that into another art form as well. I use Kryolan for my base; lots of Coty powder and I’m a big fan of Kiko Milano. They just opened a shop in Queens.
Was it hard to adjust to wearing pointe shoes for extended periods of time?
We don’t rehearse on pointe all day. It’s not mandatory. It depends on the role I’m working on; if we’re doing a tour where I’m doing Tarantella, that’s a pas de deux. So anything with partnering I’m always on pointe for.
Wasn’t that Patty McBride’s part?
Yes. We don’t use the Balanchine choreography, but she has coached me on that. I went to Chautauqua for a week before my debut and she worked with me. She conveyed the style, the attack, the aggression, the softness, the cuteness. Even some of the jokes she helped emphasize as well. She brought the essence out. Every time I do a Balanchine role, I try to channel Patty—even the way that she demonstrated things, I try to almost mimic and find the inspiration out of that. That helps to make the role easier. But I also try to find how I feel that interpretation should be, like Naïade. There aren’t really any references to see what ballerinas have done in that role, so I try to do that on my own. But also with Odette, there are so many great ballerinas that have done it, but I try to do it in my own way since there have been so many. What’s going to make me unique and stand out and be known as one of the great swan queens? It’s also my creative process: what I think would look good in it. Even if it’s something I didn’t see; what I think would look good and resemble a swan, I’m going to do it. I’ve only performed it once.
How did that go?
It was a really exciting day, and much more difficult than I expected. In the past couple of months, I understand why it’s important to enjoy your corps roles when you first join a company and to understand the importance of the corps. It builds stamina so you can go into soloist and principal roles. If I had been thrown in for my first couple of shows I would have flopped. But when I was younger, I thought I could have done them. Now I understand—enjoy the patience. The first year you learn everything and also with this company, the first year is the hardest because with others you don’t really have to worry about does my makeup look good? Is my wig going to fall off? Are my pointe shoes going to be right for the show? There are so many more elements that we bring and that go into the behind-the-scenes of our shows that other companies don’t have to worry about.
What else is different about being a member of the Trockaderos?
We don’t have as much time to prepare as other companies do. We’ll have a week to rehearse and do a six-week tour. If I had joined a more traditional company, I would not be as mature as I am now. With this company, I had to grow up like that [Snaps his fingers]. You need to be fast and quick on your feet. There’s no other way to work.
Does your natural focus, which seems pretty intense, make it easier?
Yes. The focus of ballet is what helped me recover from autism. When I was diagnosed, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t make eye contact, I couldn’t communicate, I couldn’t do anything. They said I would never be able to live on my own. They had paperwork ready for my mother to sign for me to be in the hospital for the rest of my life, and I was three years old. I’ve been in a lot of therapy in my life, but when I started ballet that was the first time they ever saw me focused. With autistic children, very commonly you’ll find something they’re obsessed with and they do successfully. Music is a popular example. For me it was ballet, and ballet was what helped my mind process things. That flipped the switch for me and I was lucky to have teachers who really let me go for it. In academics—at recess I didn’t want to play on the playground, I wanted to go inside and turn on the music and dance. They let me do that because I was focusing on something, and it was productive. When I was 10, I decided to become a professional; they didn’t know how that was going to play out, but Natasha focused me. My teachers really helped. I was always in special schools.
What is an example of your therapy?
I have hearing that’s outside of human range. My eyesight was smaller than human range. I had to wear special glasses; I had ear therapies. I used to have to do ballet with a hearing aid and the teacher would have a microphone that went straight to my ear so I could focus. When I was first coming to SAB academics-wise I was still pretty much in special schooling; I went to PPAS [Professional Performing Arts School] and they weren’t really sure if they could accept me because they didn’t think they could accommodate my needs, but my mother said, “Just meet him, and you’ll have the confidence.” They understood dancers; they never had a case like me before. They eventually accepted the challenge, and I got a diploma. I am very appreciative for PPAS for having the confidence in me. I said, “Trocks won’t take me unless I have my diploma,” and they said, “We’ll make sure you have that diploma.” I worked very hard that year.
How did the hearing issue resolve itself?
There was one summer. I think I was 10, but maybe I was 11 or 12. I had to go to New Jersey for therapy; they would have me put these humongous headphones on and they would play random music and turn the volume up and down for 10 minutes at a time twice a day for 10 days straight. Somehow that didn’t dumb down my hearing but made it so I can isolate things and get less distracted. I can hear things outside right now, but I’m still able to have a conversation with you because I’m able to isolate this, but when I was younger I wouldn’t have been able to. I would be listening to a conversation here, a conversation of what’s going on outside, a car going by, a cat screaming, whatever. I would get so distracted that I couldn’t do anything. And then I used to have to wear what was called an FM system. Basically it was a hearing-aid kind of thing; I would have to wear it in ballet class too. It had really fuzzy white noise and the voice coming out, so it forced me to focus to hear what that teacher was saying. For my eyesight, I used to have to wear prism glasses, which made everything bigger. They don’t make them in contacts. It’s not that I can’t see things up close and far away; it’s just that everything I see is smaller. And I’m slightly color-blind, but one out of four men is color-blind. With the glasses, if you’re young enough it will correct the eyesight. Now my eyes are 20/20.
You have overly sensitive hearing, which was part of why you couldn’t communicate as a child. How does that affect the way you dance to music?
I think it helped. I am able to hear every single note. I learn choreography quickly and can remember music very quickly. My therapy helped me to focus in on one thing. It’s been a long journey [Laughs], I have a very extensive life story.
You had great teachers in Natasha Bar and Patty McBride. With whom did you connect at SAB?
Krammy [Andrei Kramarevsky]. I’m a Krammy boy. He has so much knowledge, and I feel like a lot of students took his class for granted. I was one of the only students that respected him, and I fell in love with his character class; it brought the aesthetics of dancing that I loved, and his ballet class was so challenging, but still so pure. I don’t even consider it as Russian style or Balanchine style—I just think what he gave is ballet. He still remembers me, and he always said that I would be a principal some day. His class was pure, and even though maybe my classmates didn’t really understand what he was trying to give, at least I did and that’s all that mattered. His character classes are very Russian; surprisingly, there’s no other place in the city to get that character training besides SAB. He was a big inspiration for me.
Has your training changed since you became a Trockadero?
Yes. When I was a student, I thought of training as my whole body—my whole body as a unit moving from point A to point B. Now, as a professional I see how the mind-set changes. There’s a different switch that goes on. I think about how I can mentally prepare for certain roles because when you’re in school you’re not really preparing for roles but to get into a company. If I’m working on Barocco, I make sure that I’m working on the Balanchine aesthetics. For a more classical role like Naïade, I’m working on having a really strong base, strong turns, a strong demi-pointe so everything is solid.
What kind of pointe shoes do you wear?
I wear Chacott. I used to wear Freed and then my maker retired about a year and a half ago. I cried, I cried, I cried! I was so upset. But then, a couple of months ago, I hadf the brilliant idea of pulling out one of the Chacotts. It’s one of the lightest, softest shoes you can find. Whatever it was, I put on that shoe and it lasted me for 23 shows. It is my dream shoe. It’s softer, but my feet are strong, and I need a shoe that I can work in. I can’t wear a Gaynor Minden. I tried for the first couple of months in the company. They didn’t last me that long and also I would get injuries because it was over-supporting. It was pushing me in ways that I didn’t want. There are dancers in the company that wear them and they look great. I love my Chacotts, and I’m never switching shoes again—for now. The only thing I don’t like is that they’re orange. I feel like a real dancer when I’m wearing Chacotts. It’s the most incredible feeling in the world knowing that you have your shoe.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo performs at the Joyce Theater Dec 16–Jan 4.