Ballet Master

When Arionel Vargas was a little boy, enrolled in ballet school in Cuba and teased for not being “machismo”, he dreamt of joining the English National Ballet, travelling the world and dancing on the world’s most famous stages.

“My goal was to go abroad and experience other cultures. But more than anything I wanted to come to England,”he says.

Having achieved his goals, Arionel is still as spellbinding as ever, pushing himself to the max every night to prove he is still one the of best ballet dancers in the world.

About to entrance us when the ENB arrives in Oxford next week, he says he can perform Sleeping Beauty with his eyes shut, but adds: “It’s also one of the hardest ballets because everything has to be proper, so it’s quite difficult.”

Arionel is such a perfectionist that he’d never take his eye off the ball, and being the best means you can’t afford to slip up: “It is a pressure because people are looking at you all the time, so you have to be prepared for everything,” the 36-year-old says.

Fame and fortune come at a price – dancing with one of the best ballet schools in the world meant leaving his beloved Cuba and, having just been home to see his family, Arionel is already homesick. “Everybody knows me at home. I have a big family and people are very welcoming – but it’s good to be back and I didn’t realise how much work I had to do.”

So why does Cuba produce ballerinas like Eastern Europe produces shot-putters? “Ballet is very strong in Cuba because it’s run like a regime. I started at nine, and it’s like military service – you do ballet from 7.30am-1pm everyday and then school in the afternoons, but we had a great time.

“I miss it actually, because even though it was really hard work for everybody, we had fun at the same time.”

Even so, it took Arionel a long time to realise how gifted he was. “Well there are so many good dancers in Cuba that I didn’t realise I was any good until I started winning international competitions,” he grins. Once his star had been launched there was no going back, and he won a place at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet of Canada.

“It was really worth it,” he says, “even though it was a massive change for me. I was so young though but I was also so into ballet it didn’t bother me at all, despite the differences in the course and the culture. “Everything was an experience and that made me grow as an artist and meant I learned what I could do. It was a big learning curve and a real challenge.”

I ask why dancing in Cuba is so accepted for a boy and still frowned on over here, but Arionel corrects me. “I had difficult times in Cuba, people called me names – ‘look at that little dancer,’ or they said I should be an athlete, not a dancer and that it wasn’t machismo, that I was doing the wrong thing. I had a lot of fights when I was a kid. I think in England it’s more open.”

It obviously didn’t put him off, though. Arionel shrugs: “If you are going to become who you are going to become it’s got to be right, that’s my philosophy.”

So in 2004, while visiting a friend in the UK, he “popped in” to the ENB, auditioned, was offered a place as one of their principal dancers, and has been there ever since “The English National is one of the best companies in the world. I knew I could do it. But it’s not always about that – it’s about who they’ve got already and if they like you.”

That was in 2004 and he has been a principal dancer there ever since. “I’ve been all over the world and learned as much as I can as a dancer. I’m excited about coming to Oxford – I love it there, the audiences are amazing.”

Arionel Vargas is appearing with the English National Ballet in Sleeping Beauty on February 19-23 at Oxford’s New Theatre. Call 0844 8713020 or see atgtickets.com/oxford