For New York City Ballet dancer Chun Wai Chan, the sky’s the limit
Chun Wai Chan has not forgotten the day one of his three older sisters failed her audition at Guangzhou Art School, where she hoped to become a professional dancer. She was 12, and his family traveled two hours from their home in the beautiful Chinese city of Huizhou to support her. She forgot her choreography and cried all the way home, destined instead for an academic education.
Her heartbreak was a lesson, but Chan was smitten with the dance world. His parents let him take classes, and a few years later, he was the one training at the Guangzhou school. He’s been living the dream ever since, both for himself and for his sister, and it just keeps getting better.
Houston Ballet audiences had the pleasure of watching Chan develop for a decade, rising through the ranks to become a principal dancer in 2017. But he thrives on a challenge, and he took on a big one in 2020. He joined New York City Ballet as a soloist just before COVID-19 shut down every company’s season, and last fall he became the iconic Balanchine company’s first Chinese principal dancer.
Now he’s one of the stars in a starstudded environment — the kind of place where Steven Spielberg or Brad Pitt pop in to watch rehearsals. He’s just as likely to be posing on a red carpet, showing off his to-die-for physique in magazine fashion shoots or flashing a sexy smile in ads for fancy wristwatches.
When we spoke via Zoom last week, Chan, 30, was sitting in a dressing room at Lincoln Center, looking energized and handsome in a cream-colored turtleneck. Still humble, he laughed when I suggested the Hollywood A-listers might be as eager to see him as he is to meet them. He didn’t move to New York looking for fame, he said.
Maybe not. But he’s returning to Houston as a celebrity guest artist, scheduled to partner the lovably soulful principal Melody Mennite in Stanton Welch’s “Romeo and Juliet” performances March 3-5. (Karina González and Connor Walsh are cast in the leads for the opening shows, Feb. 23-26.)
Welch’s ballet, which was postponed several seasons after the pandemic, would have been Chan’s farewell show in Houston. But his appearance isn’t about fulfilling an obligation. He performed only the balcony pas de deux at Miller Outdoor Theatre three years ago in preparation for the long-postponed show and now will dance the lead of the full ballet for the first time. The role has always been on his bucket list. Along with the acting challenge, he loves Shakespeare’s story and Sergei Prokofiev’s lush score.
“So course I would say yes to that, even knowing my schedule is going to be chaotic,” he said.
When we talked, he was about to partner the ebullient Tiler Peck in New York City Ballet’s production of “The Sleeping Beauty.” Oddly enough, the last time Houston audiences saw Chan perform, he was the Prince in Ben Stevenson’s version of “The Sleeping Beauty.” “So it feels like full circle,” he said.
In the beginning, he had doubts about moving. “I had everything in Houston, and I was able to guest with Hong Kong (Ballet) and do my own projects,” he said. His parents, though, encouraged him to challenge himself. “Before 30, the only thing you need to do is not be comfortable,” they told him. “Throw yourself out of your comfort zone, no matter what position you get.”
When the pandemic hit, and NYCB delayed announcing it had hired him, he feared he might end up with no job. He signed up to compete on the Chinese reality TV show “Dance Smash” to keep himself in shape. “That was really a completely different life, traveling around, learning and filming 24 hours,” he said. The experience gave him a reset — plus hundreds of thousands of new fans and a chance to work with Shen Wei, a legendary modern dance choreographer who was among the show’s judges.
Chan has always been a standout talent, Welch told me. “He has a beautiful empathy, a gentleness, and that presence is something you notice. He also has a lyrical technique that’s rare in men. He’s beautiful to look at, a strong partner, and a lovely person.”
Mennite calls him one of those innately gifted movers other dancers can spot in a second, “where you go, ‘OK, we get it. You’re an alien. You’re just incredible.’” Now, with all he has layered onto his natural abilities, “he is just so much more than that,” she said.
“He’s developing as a whole artist. He’s become more authentically himself. Who he is as a person is what makes him shine.”
Mennite and Chan were pals before he left Houston, but they’ve grown closer with weeks of “Romeo and Juliet” rehearsals. He’s easy to work with — “the perfect mix of non-egotistical but confident and inspired” and “the best partner that exists,” she said. Rumor has it that New York’s ballerinas fight over him.
She and Chan have giggled a lot during their rehearsals, to the point she hopes they don’t burst into laughter during the ballet’s tense moments; but they have similar priorities. “We talk a lot about process,” she said. “I’m totally down to have the nerdy conversations with him about acting.”
A voracious learner even outside the studio, Chan goes to acting sessions every Monday in New York to refine his performing. “Sometimes we try to project our movement, and it becomes too theatrical,” he said. He wants even his storybook princes to be believable.
Chan built his technique during six years at Guangzhou, where dancers are trained in the Vaganova Method, which emphasizes strength and flexibility. He came to the U.S. at 17, after competing in the Prix de Lausanne, a premiere showcase for young dancers. He didn’t win a prize but left with invitations from nine companies and academies.
One was School of the American Ballet, the feeder academy for New York City Ballet. Chan thought Houston would be a better place for him because he had seen “Mao’s Last Dancer,” the biopic about Houston Ballet’s first Chinese star, Li Cunxin. And two young men from Houston Ballet Academy won big at Lausanne that year. Chan was so impressed with their versatility, he wanted some of whatever it was they were learning. He came to Houston on a full scholarship and was in the corps de ballet by 2012.
He worked so hard in the beginning, he struggled early with injuries and worried that he’d chosen the wrong career. He almost left the company to pursue a dual degree in dance and business at the University of Arizona. Welch encouraged him to pace himself, and he learned that well, too. “When I’m tired, I have to take it easy. When I’m starting to hurt, I should take it easy even more,” Chan said. “The thing is to work smart and then show it onstage.”
That approach is more important now than ever. In New York, Chan performs twice as much as he did in Houston. NYCB’s current season has 22 ballets compared to Houston’s 12 or so (not counting special performances and tours).
In some ways, absorbing NYCB’s sharp, speedy and individualistic Balanchine style was like learning English during his first year in Houston, he said. It’s a whole new language. He also is adapting to the diverse movement styles of many contemporary choreographers, including Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon and Justin Peck, who encouraged him to come to New York after meeting him at Houston Ballet.
In the beginning, Chan steeled himself for bad reviews. In New York, he said, “You don’t know who is in the audience. If the New York Times and CNN are here, and it’s bad, it’s bad for the rest of your career.” That didn’t happen, and now he isn’t afraid to be himself onstage. “In a way, I’m just adding more,” he said. “So if the music is playing slower one night, I can be more lyrical and pay attention to more details. If they’re playing the same ballet much faster, I can focus on the dynamic.”
Chan hasn’t had a break since October. The week we spoke, he performed six shows and had “Sleeping Beauty” rehearsals. With massage, physical therapy and gym time, he doesn’t have much time outside the theater, but he has
made the scene at movie premieres, fashion shows and Broadway plays. He loves riding his scooter to Times Square after work for theater tickets, never knowing what he’ll see. Or just walking across the Lincoln Center plaza for shows. “There’s a lot going on whenever I want some inspiration,” he said.
With his new platform, he also feels more responsibility as a role model for Asian communities. At the urging of some of his “Dance Smash” fans, he founded a small business, Chunner Studio, and teaches there most Sunday nights. He will soon make his first film appearance in “Never Fade Away,” an upcoming short by pianist Donna Weng Friedman based on the true story of her Chinese immigrant father. It’s targeted for a May release to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander heritage month.
He took this semester off but also is working toward a degree in organization leadership at Fordham University. His family couldn’t be prouder, including the sister who gave up dancing at 12. “We laugh about it now, and she’s very supportive of my dream — and her dream,” he said.
He is still amazed, and appreciative, that his parents trusted him all those years ago, when their conservative friends thought they were crazy for not forcing their only son to pursue a career as a doctor or lawyer. “We didn’t know dancing ballet could be a real job,” he said. “I didn’t know, either. I was just really passionate about dance. I trusted my gut and did it.”
I asked if he had a five-year plan.
“Oh my gosh, I don’t know,” he said. “Things are happening so fast. Five years ago I would never have thought I’d end up here in the dressing room of
New York City Ballet. So, I don’t know how to picture it. And I don’t want to picture it, because I think the sky is the limit. I’m just going to work hard, stay healthy and be happy, and whatever happens, happens. Whatever doesn’t happen, I’m happy where I am.”