Photo courtesy Hiromi Platt Photography
Cervilio Miguel Amador was named Cincinnati Ballet’s artistic director in December, capping a quick rise through management ranks following 16 years as the company’s principal dancer. He served as rehearsal director for several years and was named interim artistic director in 2023.
He’s traded athletic jumps and sore muscles for meetings and spreadsheets, but Amador, 41, remains a dancer at heart. He knows his place in Cincinnati’s arts community and his life here as a husband and father flowed directly from his early exposure to dance in his native Cuba—though he didn’t originally plan to become a dancer.
How and when did you fall in love with dance?
As a child in Cuba, my two older sisters attended the town’s arts school—one played the violin, the other played the guitar. My parents wanted me to pursue going to that school, which also had very good academics, and you have to audition to get accepted. I was 9 years old when it was my turn, and I wanted to play the saxophone because my sisters were musicians. One sister said I should audition for ballet because I wasn’t that good a musician. [Laughs] I had no clue what ballet was, but I was on a swimming team and was athletic and perhaps she thought I could be a dancer. At that age, the audition wasn’t really about your knowledge of dance or music, they were just looking for your natural abilities, how was your flexibility in jumping or how coordinated were you to rhythm.
The teachers told my parents that I was good enough to get into the school for music, but I was way more talented in dance. I said I’d give it a try. I just wanted to be in the same school with my sisters. I remember my mind shifted right away about ballet and I was like, Oh, my God, this is really hard. It was physical, but it was also very much mental and I loved the music and the whole atmosphere. It was so challenging, and I was drawn to that. From there on, I was, I love this. This is what I want to do.
Was it a natural transition for you to become a professional dancer?
Being a dancer in Cuba is a high-level position supported by the government. It was known that if you could make it as a professional dancer you’d travel the world representing Cuba, and traveling the world meant everything to us because very few Cubans got to do it. The big challenge growing up was whether or not I was going to make it into the National Ballet of Cuba, and there weren’t many spots for high school graduates. By then I just had all my eggs in that basket, and I was fortunate to be accepted. I had nothing else in my head that I was going to fall back on.
Your professional dance career was a lot like a professional athlete: very dependent on your body holding up. How did you manage that process?
When I think back to being a kid, ballet really captivated me right away. A big part of the attraction was the physicality. But then you add the music to it, and you express yourself by moving to it. It really becomes an adrenaline rush that you want to keep seeking. And when you add the performance aspect of it—being in the theater, the magic of the lights, the acting, becoming the characters—it’s magic.
I remember Martha Graham once said a dancer dies twice: once when he leaves the stage, and once when he leaves this Earth. You make a career out of dance, and yet it ends when you’re still young. I mean, I was 35. You’re thinking, What’s going to be next?
Do you get out and enjoy other forms of dance in Cincinnati?
I love dancing. Even when I was a ballet dancer, I’d take every opportunity I could to go to a bar or a club and dance any kind of style, any kind of music. I’ve continued that even after being retired, though maybe a little bit less now with young children. I do try to go salsa dancing. My sisters live in Cincinnati now and have a great salsa group, so I go to their events and find myself dancing. It feels good.
Does being exposed to these other dance styles help you choreograph shows for Cincinnati Ballet?
I feel that the repertoire of Cincinnati Ballet is extremely diverse. It’s not like back in the day or even how I grew up, where everything was focused on classical works. The National Ballet of Cuba was only classical. We have that foundation of classical here, but the U.S. culture and the Cincinnati culture are so diverse that you learn to interpret music a different way. You learn to move in different ways.
As I develop a new season, I’ll think of the dancers I have and what they’re capable of executing well and what kind of work can influence them in their careers. Then there’s the idea of what feels relevant right now in the world we live in. There are these two very opposite worlds in ballet: the masterpieces and classical works and the innovative, rule-breaking contemporary works. I want to be able to live all across that spectrum.
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