Born ready: Ballet Manila guest artist Esteban Hernandez and his world of possibilities
Esteban enjoys dancing Basilio: “It feels a lot like me. I like to have fun. I don’t like to take things too seriously.”
By Susan A. De Guzman
San Francisco Ballet principal artist Esteban Hernandez got on a plane that took him halfway across the globe and, upon reaching the Philippines, was pleasantly surprised to find himself feeling like he was back in Guadalajara, Mexico where he was born and raised and first dreamt of becoming a ballet dancer at age 7.
Having had the chance to visit Intramuros, he saw similarities to the architecture he grew up seeing. But more than just the structures, it was the nature of the people he met that he instantly related to. “Though it’s my first time, it’s like I’ve been here before,” begins Esteban, flashing a wide smile that has become a familiar one to colleagues at Ballet Manila where he is a guest artist for Don Quixote. “It makes me think of home because everyone’s been really warm, nice, friendly and helpful.”
At age 7, Esteban Hernandez already told his father that he wanted to be a ballet dancer. “I just knew!” he says.
Ballet Manila’s Pasay compound, where the main studio sits in the corner of a lush garden, also transports him to the Hernandez abode where dancing students and ballet music are everyday sights and sounds. “Talking with Lisa [Macuja-Elizalde, BM artistic director] and her projects here reminds me so much of my family and my family history. It’s really similar and really amazing,” Esteban enthuses.
That his full-length Don Quixote debut is happening in a place he is so comfortable in makes so much sense to the danseur. “It requires a good sense of community to make it work. Because you’re depicting a small town in Spain where everybody sort of knows each other and there’s oneness in the people you don’t get everywhere. It feels right to do it here,” he muses.
In the few days since his arrival, not only has the company welcomed him as one of their own, but in particular, principal dancer Jasmine Pia Dames – the Kitri to his Basilio – has put him very much at ease. As new partners, they have had to adapt to each other quickly with opening night just two weeks away. But from what can be seen in rehearsals, the bonding is already there. “It’s been fun,” Esteban confirms. She’s been great to work with, really patient and understanding because it took me a few days to get adjusted to the time, the weather. She’s been extremely helpful and I’m enjoying working with her. She has good instincts and is very natural in her way of being. She’s made it really easy for me to sort of fit in and get to dance with her.”
What also helps is that Don Quixote is a ballet that puts everyone in a good mood. “Lisa said it, Don Quixote is not too deep. The characters, for the most part, are happy, joyful. They love live, they love the people that live around them. They like having fun with each other, they like teasing each other. It’s really… free! In a way, it feels a lot like me. I like to have fun. I don’t like to take things too seriously.”
Esteban grew up dancing Basilio variations, including the Act 3 variation which he performed for the first time for a competition in Havana, Cuba when he was 14. Admittedly, he didn’t feel comfortable in the role then yet specially since it had become somewhat of a signature for his older brother Isaac (also a principal dancer now at San Francisco Ballet). At 16, when Esteban was already a student at the Royal Ballet School in London, he learned the Don Quixote variations again and its grand pas de deux. “All of a sudden, it felt much more natural, much more like myself, so I started having fun with it.”
Adjusting to the time difference and the searing summer heat, San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Esteban Hernandez gamely rehearses with Ballet Manila for his first full-length Don Quixote.
It was also a revelation for him then that he could dance a particular part without having to copy how others were doing it. “I discovered I didn’t have to do anything like anybody else, that I could do things my own way. Of course, using the information from many people, using them as references and inspiration but not to replicate exactly what they did. That was quite liberating! So when I learned that, not just with Don Quixote but with everything else, it just became a whole new world of possibilities.”
The possibilities actually opened up for Esteban quite early when, at the tender age of 7, he firmly told his father Hector he wanted to become a professional ballet dancer. Even now at 28, he is hard put to explain how he came to that big decision when his friends were probably still busy playing with toy cars. “But I knew!” he shares.
Perhaps it was seeing his older brother Isaac being taught by his father, a professional ballet dancer, that sparked the inspiration. “I just remember watching them in the patio where we would do the laundry, as often as they were there. I would just sit and watch and watch. There was just something about the music, the movement and the relationship between the two. Something just drew me in. The more we were learning about it, the more we were discovering what was possible.”
The older Hernandez did not sugar-coat the realities of being a professional dancer to his sons. Esteban recalls being told that he had to work hard, make a lot of sacrifices, how he would likely have to face struggles, even bullying, how he may have to leave their home to study and seek opportunities elsewhere. Asked if, knowing all of these, he still wanted to do it, Esteban said yes. That’s when his father started teaching him ballet too.
There’s instant bonding between Esteban and Ballet Manila principal dancer Pia Dames. “She’s been great to work with, really patient and understanding,” he describes.
What Esteban learned of ballet in those years came from a combination of his father’s lessons and the instinct of a boy with a love for dance, later nourished by video tapes of the classical repertoire. Back then, Esteban had never been to a ballet nor even seen a ballet performance.
His first time to see a ballet done professionally was from a VHS tape of American Ballet Theater’s Le Corsaire featuring Angel Correa, Paloma Herrera, Julie Kent and Vladimir Malakov. It was an eye-opener, to say the least. “It was a very high standard performance. We had no idea that what we were doing translated into that. I learned so much of ballet that way. It was a look into another world of possibilities – that’s what we were going for.”
Though he had a clearer vision in his mind, Esteban says there were years – particularly from ages 12 to 16 – that he considers the hardest in the pursuit of his goals. “There were times I would just be upset, not at ballet itself, but at me for not being able to do the things I wanted to do, not having the abilities to be able to do them consistently and feel like I was doing my best all the time. I think as I grew up, I learned to be easier on myself. It’s important to also give yourself a break, to be kind to yourself.”
Through what he calls the difficult years, Esteban persisted. He didn’t have a Plan B. “I never gave in to despair. I never really considered doing anything else. I just always trusted that things were going to work out. I feel like this is what I’m supposed to do.”
“Ballet is a collective effort,” Esteban points out. “Every single part is important.”
At 19, after finishing his ballet studies in London, Esteban received a contract from San Francisco Ballet to be part of its corps. While it was certainly an achievement, it didn’t mean that the budding dancer could slacken off. Far from it. “It’s not like I got to dance everything right away. My first year in the company, I was barely cast in anything. I was mostly third cast, even fourth cast.”
He remembers that his first few performances with the company was in Cinderella. “I did not dance at all. I was a leaf and I was a wheel! And you couldn’t even see my face because we were in full black suits.”
But you can bet Esteban tried to be the best leaf or the best wheel. Like a sponge, he absorbed as much as he could in a supportive environment. So that he wouldn’t feel like he was just passing time, he started learning as many parts as he could even if those parts weren’t assigned to him. In school, that’s what he was taught and he took it to heart. “Be ready. No matter what. Learn as much as you can. Because you never know. You want to be ready when the opportunity shows up. And especially when you’re just starting, those opportunities are valuable. And so I would always make myself available whenever anybody needed anything. I would say, ‘Me, me…’,” he laughingly recalls. “Through that, I think the artistic staff noticed that I had the ability to jump into different places, that I was reliable.”
Through his years with the corps and as a soloist and then a principal, Esteban has learned that a professional dancer’s career is so much more than being able to do the steps and the choreography.
Though he felt he was ready when he entered San Francisco Ballet, the reality was that he still had a lot of growing to undergo. “I learned that a professional dancer’s career is so much more than being able to do the steps and the choreography, that there’s so much more to ballet. It’s a real craft. Just like how an artisan or a painter develops their craft over many, many, many years, the same goes for a ballet dancer. Even when you’re a professional, especially once you’re a professional, because then that’s creating a platform for you to learn more about what it is you’re actually trying to do.”
In 2017, after four years with the company, Esteban was promoted to soloist. Just two years later, he was named principal dancer, inarguably a coveted spot for any dancer. But for him, the title is mostly symbolic. “It’s not the ultimate goal. Honestly, when I became a principal, I knew I had so much more to learn. Back to when I was 19, yes, I can do it but it’s much harder than I ever thought and requires so much more of you than I ever imagined. It was kind of humbling to be promoted. Everyone’s saying, you’ve made it. No, no, no, I haven’t made anything… I’m just starting.”
He is thankful for his years in the corps, of being a soloist and then eventually being a principal because it ingrained in him how important every single part in a ballet is. “You can’t put on a show by yourself and every person is as important as the other. If one person is not invested or committed into what you’re doing, then it kind of looks like it takes you out it. It’s a collective effort to create these worlds and to tell these stories and to ideally bring people out of their regular lives into a space where they can just be and watch and feel at peace watching what it is and feel good about what they’re experiencing.”
Esteban, front and center, poses for a “family” photograph with Ballet Manila after leading the day’s company class. Photo by Reparado Marino
It is only now, after five years, that Esteban believes he has become a well-rounded principal dancer. “I feel like I have enough experience now where I can say yes, I’m at a good place. But at the same time, there’s so much more for me to do.”
Asked how he would encourage young boys who might be considering a career in dance, Esteban has a simple answer: “More than anything, (to say) that it’s possible.”
Like other artists, he is all too familiar with the skepticism some have upon finding out he is a dancer, that it is not just a hobby for him. “I think it’s so hard for some people to imagine that it’s possible to make a career of dance but also to be able to live a dignified life through the arts. It’s a profession, it’s a career, it’s a vocation. And so I think it’s important to tell people that it is a viable way of living.”
Indeed, Esteban – among many others – is living proof that being an artist is a profession, regardless of where one comes from. “I started from my backyard with nothing (but) concrete floor, no ceiling, thin pieces of wood, makeshift barre… I don’t think it’s so much about the resources you have but it’s how you use them. Would you be able to make the most out of them and out of the time you have, the opportunities you have?
“For me, it’s also important to remind people of that. To really invest themselves into it – if dance is what they want to do. Because it does pay off in the long run. There is something special about something that takes time. Ballet and the arts, any kind of craft, takes time. Nothing happens immediately. It’s easy to be impatient with yourself, to believe that time is worth something. Not just in dance but life in general. Our time is limited so it’s important to really use it as best as possible.”
From one Basilio to another: Esteban shadows Ballet Manila co-artistic associate Gerardo Francisco Jr. as the latter shares nuances in the role.
Photos and videos by Giselle P. Kasilag
