Watching Eric Greatest navigate the sensuous curves of Stanton Welch’s Tapestry, throughout Houston Ballet’s Jubilee of Dance this December, the dancer’s movement and exactitude merged right into a seamless entire. His beneficiant port de bras caressed the area, drawing out Welch’s nuanced choreographic strains. Together with his crisp method, refined swagger, and beguiling fluidity, Greatest catapulted from the corps de ballet to soloist on the opening of the season, and audiences can’t get sufficient of him.
Firm: Houston Ballet
Age: 21
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Coaching: Dance Creations Academy, Houston Ballet Academy, Houston Ballet II
Vacation spot Houston: Greatest bonded with Houston Ballet throughout his first summer season intensive there in 2018. “I improved a lot and made so many pals. I felt this can be a place the place I can develop and study,” he says. Throughout his subsequent summer season, in Los Angeles at a Debbie Allen Dance Academy intensive, he met visitor trainer Lauren Anderson, who’s Houston Ballet Academy’s affiliate director of training and group engagement. “She stated, ‘Oh, you must get again to Houston, like, immediately.’ So I did.”
Fast rise: After becoming a member of Houston Ballet II in 2021, Greatest apprenticed with the primary firm in 2022, and sailed into the corps in 2023. After a flurry of lead roles, he was promoted to soloist at first of the season, a time he describes as “taking that leap of religion and going alongside for the journey. I’ve shocked myself with what I used to be truly able to doing and due to Stanton [Welch] and Julie [Kent]’s assist and religion in me.”
Midsummer doubleheader: Houston audiences received to know simply how a lot Greatest was able to when he landed main roles—Lysander and Puck—in each casts of John Neumeier’s A Midsummer Evening’s Dream firstly of this season.
What the co-artistic administrators are saying: “Eric has such bodily intelligence, his thoughts–physique connection is extraordinary,” says Julie Kent. “There’s a divine high quality to his dancing. Additionally, he appears to be like nice at each angle.” Stanton Welch shares that “Eric is an exceptional expertise. He’s so musical, and brings such element to my ballets. I get to choreograph with out restrict, and he makes me wish to be a greater choreographer.”
Talking the identical language: Greatest’s affinity for Welch’s intricate choreography comes via within the rising record of Welch’s ballets he’s carried out up to now. “Now I can go into his new works realizing what he’s going to deliver and what he’s in search of,” says Greatest. “I simply attempt to are available with the identical vitality, able to work.” Clear, initially created after 9/11, made a profound affect on Greatest. “Each time I watch this ballet or I carry out it or rehearse it, I all the time discover one thing new that ties to the narrative of it.”
Past dancing: Greatest loves drawing and sketching. “Principally self-portraits, folks, typically superheroes. I’m very captivated with artwork and wish to take extra courses,” he says. “I all the time wish to be sure that I hold doing the issues that curiosity me apart from dance.”
