And so it was that he, a b-boy, was discovered by she, a prima ballerina, on the streets of Chicago.
The year was 1980. Breaking was just then breaking through as the next big thing in dance, and Victor Temple and his crew were dancing for dollars on cardboard flats along Chicago’s “Miracle Mile.” Dame Sonia Arova was an international star touring the dance world, performing in a run of shows with The Chicago School of Ballet, one of America’s premiere ballet companies.
Though worlds apart, Arova saw something familiar in Temple’s dance and directed him to visit the ballet company’s development school the next day. He knew that she was opening doors for him—and even openly tasking instructors with irresistible, imperious ways to look after the young Black dancer as he began the exacting rigors of ballet training.
Flash forward. When, many years later, he learned that the prima ballerina died on a return from ballet dancing to acclaim in China, Temple called her widower from an airport phone, asking and begging him what could he possibly do to repay Arova for all that she had done for him. “You can’t pay it back,” he told Temple, “but you can pay it forward.”
That was how I met Victor Temple, as he paid it forward at his Santa Rosa dance school, where he has raised new generations of dancers into the world of ballet.
He stood, dressed in all-black, his dreadlocks up in a colorful wrap, an outsized scarf around his neck, in the fashion of theatrical performance directors the world over. On his black T-shirt was printed the iconic image of boxer Muhammed Ali standing defiant and triumphant over an opponent knocked flat (“float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”).
Temple was prominent amid a gaggle of playful young dancers (his age 10-13-year-old ballet group) in dance costume, surrounded by a smattering of middle-aged parents in civvies. He was directing them—all of them, dancers and non-dancing parents alike—in a party scene set to the song, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).”
The scene is part of his upcoming adaptation of Duke Elington’s Nutcracker Suite—a showcase for the school, featuring junior and senior ballet companies, and all levels of instruction below them, including the six year olds. It is a new North Bay tradition.
Cincinnatus Hibbard: Anchoring the show are top adult dancers from the likes of SF Ballet. But these ringers are in some sense representative of your school’s output…
Victor Temple: I place 100% of my graduating students in top schools and companies—even if I have to drive or fly them to auditions myself.
What other classes do you have?
Hip-hop, breakdancing, modern, West African drum. And my ballet graduates can dance them all.
What beautiful cultural hybridity. I understand the famous Dance Theater of Harlem offered to give you its name to establish a sister school right here in Santa Rosa.
Santa Rosa would be a dance hub on the West Coast. I can’t do it because my studio’s too small. We need a warehouse with space for at least three full-sized studios.
Lean more: Duke Ellington’s ‘Nutcracker Suite’ will be performed at Santa Rosa’s Finley Center Dec. 20 at 3 and 6pm. Tickets are $40, and free for those under two years old. newworldballet.com. Full interview with Temple and me at buzzsprout.com/2033926.
