António Casalinho – The Making of a Star

Fresh from winning the Gold Medal at Prix de Lausanne 2021, the Portuguese dancer António Casalinho talks to Ballet Position

There are times when superlatives fall short of the reality they’re trying to describe. That is certainly the case with the 17-year old Portuguese dancer António Casalinho, worthy winner of two awards at the 2021 edition of the prestigious Prix de Lausanne: Best Contemporary Interpretation and the Gold Medal, along with the coveted title of Laureate of the Prix de Lausanne.

The dancer, choreographer and artistic director Maina Gielgud has worked with Casalinho. This is her assessment:

“He already has, at age 17, the maturity, technique, stylistic understanding, musicality, artistry, acting ability of a top Principal in a first rate company. [He has] really good proportions [and] outstanding coordination of movement.”

And as if all that weren’t enough, Maina Gielgud adds:

“And the X factor, which is not describable.”

You can judge for yourself. Here is António Casalinho dancing the Acteon variation, his classical entry for the Prix de Lausanne.

António Casalinho – The Beginning

We’re a long way away from the hyperactive eight-year-old from the small town of Leiria, just north of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, who determined he wanted to do ballet class, even though he wasn’t really familiar with ballet, not having watched any performances in his short life.

So, over WhatsApp I asked Casalinho, what attracted him to ballet?

“Girls I was friends with at school attended ballet classes (…) I was always a very active child, never still, full of energy, playing, climbing trees, all that. I always wanted to do things outside of school.

“So I saw ballet as something I should try, put my energy to some use.”

The version told by Annarella Roura Sanchez, the Cuban dancer and teacher, who just over 20 years ago set up an Academy of Dance, and subsequently her Conservatório Internacional de Ballet e Dança, in Leiria, is a little fuller.

“One of the little girls I taught at the Catholic school came to me and said there was a boy who wanted to come to class. I said, No, as I thought this was a childish prank. But she insisted: ‘You know, he can do the splits!’

“So, he came to me, all sweet and well-behaved (…) I put some music on and said, ‘you like to dance, then dance!’ And, you know, he reminded me of Tarzan: he pranced around, walked on his hands, performed all kind of circus tricks and ended by doing the splits.”

She laughs at the memory with a mix of pride and affection – Casalinho is, after all, very much her creation.  She was, however, impressed with his agility, natural facility and easy en dehors, and took him under her wing, having persuaded his naturally protective parents to allow him to do ballet.

Over the following years his passion for dance developed gradually.

“At the beginning I went to class only four times a week. Little by little Annarella got me to do more, which I liked; and then we started going to competitions, I saw there were better dancers… and then Annarella explained that one day I could earn a living from dancing, make dance my profession.

“It was at that point that my interest in dance became more serious.”

António Casalinho – Multi-Award Winner

Trained in the Cuban style of ballet, Casalinho has won awards in every international competition he’s entered: prior to Prix de Lausanne he had won the Beijing International Ballet and Choreography Competition in 2019, Gold Medal in the Junior Category at Varna in 2018, first prize in the Junior category at the Youth America Grand Prix in 2016.

Natural talent is one thing; top level teaching and wise mentoring another. Both go towards making an artist; but neither would work without the right mental attitude. Interviewed after an early edition of YAGP, the child Casalinho stated he would always have something new to learn, and added “nobody is perfect.”

I asked him whether that was still his attitude:

“Yes, of course! Nobody is perfect, and that’s a fact. When we really like something and want to do our very best, we are never satisfied. Never. And therefore we always find something that can be improved (…) and that’s what makes us grow as dancers and human beings.”

In António Casalinho’s case, his technique evolved a lot faster than his acting ability, and Annarella felt he would benefit from expert coaching. So she invited Maina Gielgud to guest teach at the Conservatório.

To begin with, Maina Gielgud found him “not at ease and quite restrained.

“The mime was sincere but held back (…)

“ [However] He is a super-quick study, remembers all corrections and (…) of course, this means that it is possible to advance quickly to explore a role not just technically (…), but to discuss the different possibilities of the character, the stagecraft involved in letting the audience into the story, into the emotions of the characters.”

All that work came to fruition in Gielgud’s staging of Giselle for Conservatório Annarella, with Casalinho as Albrecht and another outstanding talent, Annarella’s 15-year-old daughter, Margarita Fernandes, in the title role.

António Casalinho – The Future

You would imagine, therefore, that ballet companies everywhere would be falling over themselves to engage Casalinho. Has he had many offers?

“My dream is to join The Royal Ballet in London, but the problem is that at the moment the Royal Ballet is not hiring from the Prix de Lausanne, even though it is an associate company.

“I’ve had offers from some schools in Russia, from some Junior Companies, I’ve also had an invitation from a company in England, another in Russia…

“But all this has to be well thought out together with my parents and my teachers, because these are decisions that will change one’s life.”

As I tried (and mostly failed) to digest the fact that the Royal Ballet was apparently foregoing the chance to bring an extraordinary dancer into its ranks, I asked Casalinho what he was most looking forward to learning, as he starts his professional career.

“First of all, I’m going to learn to live by myself in a vast world. It’s a completely new world for me, and that’s the reason why Annarella wants to take me to various companies, have a try, take part in galas, so as to familiarise myself with that world.

“ No matter how much people tell you things and try to explain, you never really know until you’ve tried different things.

“I think joining a company will help me acquire the maturity of a professional dancer.”

Talking to António Casalinho is a fascinating experience. Off-stage he looks younger than his 17 years, a smiley, totally unpretentious teenager; but his words carry the wisdom and maturity of a young man twice  his age, surely to a large extent the result of Annarella’s intelligent management.

I feel certain that whatever he decides for now, his future cannot be anything but stellar.

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by Teresa Guerreiro