The Best Male American Dancer In A Generation Has Appeared

(Before considering the subject of this piece, I must include a brief note about a Substack that I published last week. It pointed to the commercial success of my book The Primate Myth. But, as a number of readers noted, in my article about this I included the wrong link to buy my book! Here’s the right one: https://www.amazon.com/Primate-Myth-Latest-Science-Theory/dp/B0F27ZZ9ZN. Apologies!)

A little over a month ago, my wife and I went to the ballet. We have been going together for many years, and I have been attending performances on my own for three decades. My preference is for traditional story ballet. So I’ve been to American Ballet Theater (ABT) more than any other company. But I’ve also seen New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Mariinsky and many others.

I did not see Rudolf Nureyev or Mikhail Baryshnikov dance, but I have seen all of the best male American dancers of recent years and a lot of the most exciting stars from overseas, including Carlos Acosta and Roberto Bolle.

I bring this up because I strongly believe that 24-year old Jake Roxander, who won’t even officially be an ABT principal until the 1st of September, is the best American danseur to appear since David Hallberg joined the ABT company a quarter century ago.

In the production we saw of John Cranko’s “Eugene Onegin,” Roxander played the sensitive and doomed poet, Lensky. He brought great intelligence to his performance. But what really stood out was the warmth of his dancing and his tremendous technique.

A native of Oregon, Roxander grew up with the art as his parents were both professional dancers, and they run a ballet school in Medford, a medium-sized city in the southwest corner of the state. Roxander also has an older brother who is dancing with the Philadelphia Ballet, which is where he first attracted serious notice.

The critical establishment has not failed to pay attention. To The New York Times’ credit, it ran a laudatory profile and interview of Roxander in July.