PHOTO/PETER ZAY

Juwan Alston (right) with Elizabeth Truell in the Charlotte Ballet production of “The Nutcracker.”

Four years can change everything.

Charlotte Ballet’s youngest male dancer, Juwan Alston, did not start dancing until age 15.

“I was involved in a musical,” Alston recalled. “From the dance aspect, apparently I was very good at it—according to my choreographer and members of the production. From there I actually taught myself how to dance off of You Tube, and then I just fell in love with dance. Because ballet is the foundation for everything, I wanted to get into ballet so I could become better at jazz and get ready for Broadway, because that’s what I wanted to do at that time. Then I ended up falling in love with ballet, and have gone full force ever since.”

A native of Round Rock, Texas, Alston went from wanting to be a pilot to a doctor, then finally a dancer. Now 19, the self-taught dancer is still developing.

“The company has definitely helped me grow artistically,” said Alston. “I’m still discovering my voice as an artist, but really discovering who I want to be as an artist. Even working with the smaller kids—I don’t necessarily work with them on their technique or anything, but I do very much so go and observe any classes that I can, and just watching all that they can discover within the classroom in the different ways they can move their bodies or how they can put some emotion or feeling into specific movements.

“Seeing them discover that, it is very enlightening, because while yes classical ballet is very by the book, and there are proper ways to do certain things, it is a very strong artistic form. There’s so much room to really add who you are or who the character that you are playing is to even something just as simple as a plie.”

After spending time at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, Alston’s journey brought him to Charlotte.

“Last year I was at North Carolina School of the Arts training,” Alston recalled. “I knew of Jean-Pierre (Bonnefoux, Charlotte Ballet’s artistic director) and Patty (Patricia McBride, Charlotte Ballet’s longtime co-associate artistic director) and the company because we have some alums.

“I was actually going to audition this year, but then on our last day of classes, Jean-Pierre and Sasha Janes (Charlotte Ballet co-associate artistic director) came to UNCSC and observed classes. They watched my technique class, and then they watched my partnering class. I stayed after to work on some contemporary with Sasha Janes—he also came periodically throughout the year to see a few shows. He taught us at the beginning of the school year as well. On that last day of class is when Jean-Pierre offered me the contract.”

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