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When Roman Mejia found out he would be dancing \u201cApollo,\u201d the oldest work in New York City Ballet\u2019s repertory, he knew where to turn for god guidance.<\/p>\n
A dancer who does his homework \u2014 he is, he says, \u201csuch a bunhead\u201d \u2014 Mejia had a plan, or a man, in mind: Jacques d\u2019Amboise, a family friend and an athletic, unruly Apollo from the 1950s and \u201960s whose performances he studied on video, would lead the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis approach was just so raw,\u201d Mejia said after a run-through of the ballet in advance of his debut. \u201cEssentially at the beginning of the ballet, he is just learning how to become a god. And these muses are here to teach him how to progress and how to get there. So you really see from the beginning that he\u2019s almost weak on his feet, trying to figure out things \u2014 some things work, some things don\u2019t. He gets frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The fervor of youth? Mejia, 25, has always had that down. But over the last couple of seasons, he has begun to tap into a more understated refinement, which was indelibly clear in his first \u201cApollo,\u201d on Tuesday night at Lincoln Center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mejia went from an unfinished boy to a refined god with the help of his three muses (Unity Phelan, Dominika Afanasenkov and Ashley Hod). He was raw, yes, but also guileless. This was a sincere, musical Apollo \u2014 full of heat and strength, but also youthful and unaffected, impulsive and curious. Mejia\u2019s control was in the way that he linked the steps with emotions, giving both a logic, a fluidity. Mejia may have muscles \u2014 he is, as they say, ripped \u2014 but he doesn\u2019t muscle his way through steps.<\/p>\n
Mejia is an airborne dancer whose exuberance shines in joyful Balanchine ballets like \u201cStars and Stripes,\u201d \u201cRubies\u201d and \u201cWestern Symphony.\u201d But his repertoire, especially in recent seasons, has expanded to roles that require him to be more subtle, more sophisticated. His bravura side is still firmly in place, yet it is buoyed now by a growing sophistication.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mejia, who grew up in Fort Worth<\/a>, saw \u201cApollo\u201d for the first time when he was 3. It might seem unusual that such a young child would fall for such an dramatic yet unadorned Balanchine ballet with music by Stravinsky, but there he was, a toddler, performing the choreography at home. \u201cMy dad has stories of me going around the house just like this,\u201d Mejia said, illustrating a striking moment from the ballet in which Apollo wraps an arm behind his back, the other raised, and opens and closes his hands like blinkers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Both of his parents were dancers \u2014 Maria Terezia Balogh and Paul Mejia, a former member of City Ballet who had staged \u201cApollo\u201d in Texas. \u201cAt that age,\u201d his father said, \u201che would go to the ballet whenever we had a performance, and what was always amazing, whether it was \u2018Apollo\u2019 or whatever he saw, the next day he could duplicate it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just uncanny,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Roman was especially proud, Paul Mejia said, \u201cof the fact that he could do the hand behind the back and in front flashing. He thought that was a neat thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While on a visit to the zoo, the young Roman approached another little boy with his new skill. \u201cHe said, \u2018Look, look \u2014 look at this!\u2019\u201d Paul said. \u201cAnd he did Apollo, and the little boy started to scream and cry. He thought he was a nut or something.\u201d<\/p>\n Mejia started training at 3. \u201cI was just so inspired by the whole idea of moving to music and taking up space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When Mejia was 9 or 10, he lost interest in ballet and took a couple of years off, playing the piano and studying taekwondo. (He excelled at that, too.) A couple years later, while in middle school at the Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts, he learned that a nearby studio needed boys for \u201cThe Nutcracker.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t too crazy about dance, but I was doing it at school so I thought why not?\u201d Mejia said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s when I really fell back in love with it again. I think it\u2019s just the aspect of performing. I really love performing.\u201d<\/p>\n He began training at an academy in Coppell, Texas, more than an hour away. \u201cI\u2019d go with him, and he\u2019d do his class,\u201d Paul said. \u201cI didn\u2019t watch it, nothing. I wanted to stay away from the whole thing. We saw that he was not only serious, but he had a gift.\u201d<\/p>\n His parents decided to open a studio themselves. At 13, Roman started training at the Mejia Ballet Academy where he focused on technique and on learning variations, classical and from the Balanchine repertory.<\/p>\n At 14, he came to New York for one of two summer sessions at the School of American Ballet, the academy that feeds into City Ballet. Before he started, he learned about his father\u2019s history at the company \u2014 and that Paul had married Suzanne Farrell, the dancer Balanchine was most enamored with. The marriage led to drama: Paul and Farrell left the company and danced in Europe. But while Farrell eventually made her way back to City Ballet, Paul did not.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy sister always said, \u2018Oh, you know, our father was married to Suzanne Farrell,\u2019\u201d Mejia said. \u201cAnd I was like: \u2018No he wasn\u2019t. That\u2019s crazy.\u2019 And she\u2019s like, \u2018Oh yeah, it was all over the internet.\u2019\u201d (A family friend confirmed it at the dinner table one night. \u201cMy sister was, like, \u2018I told you so,\u2019\u201d he said.)<\/p>\n Once Mejia was serious about studying at the School of American Ballet, his father \u201csat down with me and kind of gave me the rundown of everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There is more family history at the school: Both of his parents studied there along with his paternal grandmother, Romana Kryzanowska, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Joseph Pilates. Mejia is named after her father, the Detroit artist Roman Kryzanowska.<\/p>\n D\u2019Amboise was the reason Mejia ended up at City Ballet. At one point Mejia found himself with an offer to join Boston Ballet or to continue at the school. D\u2019Amboise voted for New York. In 2017, Mejia joined the corps de ballet and was promoted to soloist in 2021. Two years later he became a principal dancer. In the fall of 2023, he performed his first lead in a full-length ballet as a principal: Franz, the male lead in \u201cCopp\u00e9lia.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Franz is a comic role with virtuosic elements \u2014 Mejia trademarks \u2014 but what was most revealing about his performance was the warmth and assurance with which he held the stage, especially in the classical third act.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Last winter, performing opposite Tiler Peck \u2014 his fianc\u00e9e<\/a> \u2014 he made his debut as Siegfried in \u201cSwan Lake\u201d<\/a> and, again, showed a more nuanced side of his dancing, more grounded and understated. He showed that he could be a prince.<\/p>\n For Siegfried, Mejia worked with Gonzalo Garcia, a former principal who is now a repertory director at City Ballet, and Isabelle Gu\u00e9rin, a former Paris Opera Ballet \u00e9toile. She showed him, he said, that \u201cI don\u2019t have to always punch things to make them effective.\u201d<\/p>\n Garcia, who works frequently with Mejia, was proud of his Siegfried. \u201cI think becoming that kind of dancer, a noble dancer, can take sometimes a few tries,\u201d he said. \u201cBut from the moment we started until he did his first shows, I was blown away. He understood it.\u201d<\/p>\n It has become increasingly apparent that, however thrilling, Mejia has more to offer than virtuosity. This season, he makes his debut in Jerome Robbins\u2019s elegant, folk-infused \u201cA Suite of Dances,\u201d created for Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1994; later he\u2019ll take on Balanchine\u2019s \u201cDivertimento from \u2018Le Baiser de la F\u00e9e.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fiendishly hard,\u201d he said of \u201cBaiser.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t realize. And it\u2019s not bravura at all. That solo is long<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But Mejia, Garcia said, \u201cnever whines\u201d and \u201cnever seems upset, which is kind of amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n Mejia got only one crack at \u201cApollo\u201d this time around. That was fine. When he describes himself as feeling \u201cover the moon\u201d \u2014 a recurrent Mejia line \u2014 he means it. \u201cI\u2019m ready to be pushed in this new way of not just nuanced work, but telling a story,\u201d he said. \u201cApollo is bravura, but a lot of it is so subtle and it\u2019s not so in your face. I\u2019m starting to figure out where to play with things now.\u201d<\/p>\n When the curtain went up on \u201cApollo,\u201d his nerves kicked in, but the music calmed him down. \u201cI felt so comfortable and at home,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was quite something to perform, and I just feel really lucky that I was able to experience that at this point. Obviously, I feel like here\u2019s still more to do and more to grow in it. But in the moment it just felt so right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n