Márcio Teixeira’s Story

I started dancing at 10 and began ballet training when I was 14. We had many classes at Núcleo de Convivência Menino Jesus, a charitable day care that offered many physical and artistic activities. We practised jazz and contemporary dance taught by Amanda Loula. I had a lot of fun in these classes and dancing came very easily to me. Amanda told me I had a talent and she brought me to her ballet school, Escola de Ballet Sandra Amaral.

I looked up to Paulo Macílio, who just got a scholarship to the English National Ballet School. I was still new to ballet and, after a couple of years, he returned to Brazil and everyone was talking about how clean and professional his dancing was. I wanted that for myself. I followed his path and started to dream of living abroad and getting a scholarship to ENB School which I achieved and graduated in 2015. While in London, I looked up to Carlos Acosta. I fell in love with his dancing when my school was invited by the Royal Opera House to watch him in rehearsals. I also admire Vandim Muntagirov, he is just a beautiful, phenomenal dancer.

One of the common myths about male dancers is there are not a lot of them. When I was in London our class numbers were on par with the girls’ class size. At CBJ we are even in numbers too.

I never really shared with many people at school that I dance, just my closest friends. I tried to act straight. A boy from my class who danced with me was teased. It feels very uncomfortable when everybody is calling you “viadinho” in Portuguese or “faggot” in English. It is very painful to hear that, especially when it comes with so much negativity and aggression.

My two brothers bullied me and used to call me ballerina. I was very annoyed by this and decided to take this more as a joke then letting it influence me in a negative way. Because I was so fearful of letting others know that I was dancing, I never invited my parents to watch my performances. I would wash my dance belts by hand and hide them to dry. My father watched my graduation performance from my local ballet school in Brazil, Escola de Ballet Sandra Amaral and that was very special for me. My dream is to bring my parents to Canada to watch me perform with Ballet Jörgen.

I think a mentor is important, when I was on my final year, I had a life coach, Nick Flewin. He really helped me go through auditions with a positive state of mind.

In Jan 2012 I moved to Vancouver to join Pacific DanceArts, Mr. Li Yaming granted me a scholarship to study in his school. He opened the doors for me to study ballet and to live abroad. I am extremely grateful to Mr. Li for everything that he has taught and done for me. He taught me pas de deux work which has been very handy while working as a professional dancer. When I was in ENB School, all my tutors were male, and we had male focused training. All my tutors helped me grow into the dancer I am today. When I first worked with Bengt in the 2018 Junior Company, I fall in love with his ideas of classical ballet. I am still learning from him and I will continue to grow as there is so much more to learn — he keeps pushing me.

I fell in love with ballet right away. I love the discipline and responsibility that it taught me, and I also love the feeling of movement. I love the journey of the mind when you are in the flow of the performance.

I would encourage young male dancers to focus on your dreams and follow them.