Ethereally Earthy

One late December morning at the American Ballet Theatre studios on Broadway, Ethan Stiefel, small and fair, kicks his leg high. Dressed in baggy black workout clothes that cling only at his slender calves, he manages to watch the ballet mistress attentively with his giant blue saucer eyes while keeping up a discreet running commentary with his barre-mate. Unlike many of his classmates, he doesn’t preen; there are occasional sidelong glances to check his form, but he doesn’t stare adoringly into the wall of mirrors. Nor does he break a sweat, which gives his peers, who are jacking their legs up behind their ears and audibly grunting, the appearance that they are trying a lot harder for the same effect.

Stiefel is the shirtless poster boy for the company’s West Coast premiere of “Le Corsaire,” the rarely seen three-act Russian ballet opening Tuesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, in which he dances the role of Conrad the pirate. This will be the first time Stiefel has danced with ABT in Southern California. In a review of “Le Corsaire” last June, New York Times chief dance critic Anna Kisselgoff wrote that Stiefel “stole the show with his astonishing, newfound bravura,” calling it “a breakthrough season” for the dancer.

But this wasn’t the first time the young dancer had been singled out. An all-American kid who grew up riding dirt bikes in Wisconsin, is close to his family and loves his Harley as much as his thriving ballet career, Stiefel first garnered major critical attention at New York City Ballet in the mid-’90s. Observers have noted his “exquisite technique,” “American streamlined style” and an “eat-my-dust jete that would make Michael Jordan blink.” Now 25, Stiefel has made a series of risky leaps in his nine years as a professional dancer: from NYCB to the Zurich Ballet and back again twice, before defecting to American Ballet Theatre, where he became a principal dancer in 1997.

But it was his work last fall in “Known by Heart,” an ABT production by choreographer Twyla Tharp, that caused the latest commotion. Joan Acocella of the New Yorker gushed that he was “probably the most advanced male ballet dancer in the world,” calling his solo “a miracle” and daring to compare him to Baryshnikov, Stiefel’s onetime teacher.

It’s been a long time since a ballet dancer has penetrated the mainstream consciousness, like a Baryshnikov or a Nureyev. But the brouhaha suggested that Stiefel is among the dance world’s best hopes.

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Between exercises when Stiefel is at rest, he rocks gently from side to side on his small, ballet-slippered feet, head proudly cocked. Standing off in a corner while the ballerinas take their turn, he gives the piano player a wink and makes the rounds, working the room, his placid face erupting every now and then into a rubbery, ear-to-ear grin. Blink, and the ethereal ballet dancer has vanished into the pantomime of a wisecracking kid hanging out on a street corner, chatting with his buddies.

“I try and keep it light,” he says afterward in a windowless conference room, eating a banana and sipping from a bottle of spring water. “I could kind of get worked up about it,” he says about the daily chore that is ballet class, but he’s learned to conserve his energy for rehearsal, which lasts at least five hours, five or six days a week, often without a break. “I keep it mellow.”

For such an ethereal creature, Stiefel’s voice is a surprise: deep, lazy-tongued. He’s picked up a slight New York tinge and holds on to the parlance of youth--often dropping the Gs from his words, as if to make them friendlier. In conversation, he seems intelligent and coolly self-assured, but he sometimes talks in circles, cluttering his sentences with “likes” and “kind ofs.” Perched on the edge of what could become a wider fame, he appears to be walking the delicate line between answering directly and worrying about how his words might sound in print. Stiefel says he tries to make the daily 10:15 a.m. class, no matter what he’s been doing the night before. (Last night, he was a guest performer in a New York City Ballet production of the “Nutcracker.”) “It’s either I take class or I don’t do anything,” he says. “It’s difficult for me to kind of come in and do a class for myself without the music and so on.”

It took him a while to find that level of discipline. At 8, Stiefel began, like many boys, to dance because his older sister was taking lessons. He was a natural who didn’t have to work too hard to excel. He liked ballet, but he also liked long-distance running and riding dirt bikes.

When he was 12, the family moved from Wisconsin back to Pennsylvania, where he had been born. And when he was 14, his father, a federal law enforcement officer, was transferred to Manhattan, where he danced on scholarship at the ABT school. There, he took class with Baryshnikov: “He just kind of had, like, keys to simplify everything,” Stiefel says. “I think that was a really important thing for me to learn--that, you know, it’s not all that complicated. I’m not saying it’s not difficult, but it’s not all that complicated.”

It wasn’t until the family moved to New York, Stiefel says, that he began to take dance seriously. “Up until that point, I was kind of, like, yeah, I had the talent, I could do certain things, you know; I could enjoy it, but it’s not like the light kind of went on.”

Exposed to professional dancers, he says, “I could see what was necessary to make it, and I decided I wanted to go full-out and become a professional ballet dancer.”

He gave up long-distance running and much of his free time to study dancing. But despite the fact that it makes ABT nervous, he won’t give up his Harley. “I’m pretty excited because, like, the new one I just got is, like, the biggest engine they’ve ever made,” he says. “Last summer, Gillian [Murphy, ABT member and his girlfriend] and I did about 3,500 miles on the bike. We both enjoy it, so [I] just kind of had to get one that was a little more comfortable.”

In his spare time, Stiefel says, he plays at music mixing, DJ-style, and takes road trips to upstate New York or to Sealings Grove, Pa., to visit his parents. The dancer admits that “a ballet dancer riding a motorcycle is like a surgeon takin’ Band Saw 101,” but he considers it a calculated risk, just like everything else. “In the end, you just have to do it if you want to do it, and if you’re gonna be scared, then you shouldn’t do it in the first place. Because riding a motorcycle isn’t about proving anything or, you know, bein’ a showpiece or, you know, what I mean--tryin’ to get chicks or somethin’ like that.”

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Stiefel has been equally confident and independent-minded when handling his career. He was just 16 when he landed what for many dancers would have been the ultimate entry-level job: a post at the New York City Ballet. But just three years later, feeling burned-out and antsy for something new, Stiefel left NYCB to dance with the Zurich Ballet, where his sister Erin was a member until she resigned last year because of a knee injury. While he returned once to perform with NYCB, he says there was no guarantee they would hold his place indefinitely.

“People were, like, ‘Wow, why would you do something like that?’ ” he says of his decision. “Looking back, it just seemed like the right thing to do--and it was possible to do it.”

Going away, he says, “gave me the confidence to know that whatever the situation was, whether I made a right decision or a wrong decision, I could still kind of just go with it and make it work for myself.”

He was ready to return in scarcely a year, rested, even a little restless.

NYCB artistic director Peter Martins welcomed him back, promoting him to soloist. By 1995, he was again promoted to principal dancer, and was photographed for Vanity Fair, posed seductively on his Harley. But by 1996, he grew restless again. He wanted a chance to accept invitations to dance with other companies from time to time, but Martins’ policy didn’t allow for freelancing, so Stiefel and NYCB parted company again, and Stiefel headed back to Switzerland.

“Maybe, like, it’s selfish or whatever,” he says, “but, you know, it’s hard to sit there for a number of years and just kind of let things go by. I mean, it’s not really that long a career.”

Stiefel insists he left NYCB again on good terms and is happy to continue the relationship as a guest artist. He came back from Zurich nursing an injury in early 1996 and began conversations with ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie. Within a year, he had given notice to Zurich and joined ABT.

“The choreography,” Stiefel says, “is much more pyrotechnical than what I had been doing, and I felt that this is the time to be doing it, not, whatever, seven years down the road when it would be even more difficult to execute these things.”

The transition wasn’t necessarily an easy one: Stiefel says he has had to work hard to learn the ABT repertory. He calls ABT his “priority” but adds that the 35-week-per-year performance schedule leaves him time to work with other companies, something that his new artistic director doesn’t discourage.

“It’s important to have new experiences with different people,” Stiefel says. “If I have the opportunity and the ability to do it at this point, then down the road I can say, ‘Well, I’ve done this and I know this appeals to me more than something else,’ and you know, I can really find a place where my true interest in dance lies. I mean, at the moment my interest lies everywhere,” he says. “I don’t want to be limited to being a great New York City Ballet dancer or a great American Ballet Theatre dancer or whatever. I am definitely fortunate to have danced and to be dancing with American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet,” he says. “But you don’t want to become kind of awed by it, because that can also sort of hold you back.”

If he didn’t have freelance opportunities, he says, “I could still be dancing in New York City Ballet and probably, you know, could be quite happy. But that’s actually the point: The other things came up, and I’m, like, well, I’ve been blessed, so I might as well take the chance.”

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Taking chances has certainly thrown Stiefel more into the limelight, but he insists his focus is on dancing, not fame. “Whether I’m being recognized on the highest level or the lowest level, I’m not gonna change anything that maybe will make me have more star value, or change my way of goin’ about the business,” he says. “I just have to keep it all in perspective.”

Of critical reaction to “Known by Heart,” he says, “I discovered a lot of new things about myself and about my dancing and so on, but also there were some things there that I already knew that I could do. I’m not tryin’ to say that [Tharp] didn’t pull something out of me. I think people saw it as a breakthrough performance because they don’t see me movin’ around in my living room or just breakin’ out in a studio. They only see what I do on stage, and I just hadn’t been doin’ things that would present me in that way.

“I know what I’m capable of,” he continues, sounding both unapologetic and a little embarrassed. “I don’t mean to sound arrogant about that; I can’t help it, I have to believe in what I’m doing or else the audience isn’t gonna believe in what I’m doing.”

Of the claim that he is the most advanced male ballet dancer on the planet, he says politely, “It’s flattering,” before mentioning his ABT colleagues. “Jose Carren~o, Angel Corella, Vladimir Malakhov, Julio Bocca--there’s 10 people and everyone’s different. I mean, who’s the best male dancer in the world? I’m from America, Jose is from Cuba, Angel is from Spain; everyone’s bringin’ their own background in there. I’m fortunate enough to be dancin’ alongside these people. Honestly and truly, that’s one of the reasons that I came here, to be a principal dancer among these others.”

What sets Stiefel apart, says ABT artistic director McKenzie, is his “uncanny ability to keep a very individual voice while absorbing [a] style that he’s never done before. And hence something completely unique comes out of it. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got a tremendous facility and that he’s smart and musical. It’s as if there were no technical barriers there.”

As Stiefel has become more sought-after, he’s recently hired an agent. “I don’t wanna kind of mess things up just because of my lack of knowledge in how the business works,” Stiefel says. “But I really hesitated because I’m kind of, you know, I’m an independent person. That doesn’t mean I’m not open and I don’t want to listen to people, but you never know, because sometimes they can get too involved.” He wants to make sure he can still do things his way. “If I want to go and ride a motorcycle, I’m gonna do that.”

The future, he says, is something he takes one decision at a time. “I just have to see how I feel and how everything goes. You just have to know when the time is right to make a move or not make a move. I don’t want people to misunderstand that I feel I have to move around. That’s not the point, either. If I’m happy with where I’m at for the next 15 years, I’ll stay here.”

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“Le Corsaire,” American Ballet Theatre, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m., and Saturday and next Sunday, 2 p.m., Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, $10-$68. (714) 740-7878 or (213) 365-3500. Stiefel performs Wednesday and Friday at 8 p.m. and next Sunday at 2 p.m.