In 2022, Steven Melendez was named artistic director of New York Theatre Ballet, becoming only the second person to lead the institution. In several ways, he was destined to become its next leader since his relationship with the company started when he was only 7 years old and founding artistic director Diana Byer recruited him to train at NYTB’s school through the company’s LIFT scholarship program. As an adult he then went on to dance professionally with NYTB for 15 years. His dance career also included numerous international stints, including as a soloist dancer with Ballet Concierto in Buenos Aires, Argentina and as a principal dancer with the Vanemuine Theater Ballet Company in Tartu, Estonia.

In other ways, however, Steven’s rise to his current leadership position has been extraordinary, if not highly improbable. When he started studying at NYTB, Steven was living with his mother in a homeless shelter in the Bronx and would reside there for three years. Thanks to the LIFT program as well as his inborn talent, he was able to traverse innumerable barriers as he crossed several times a week from the South Bronx to the rarefied world of Park Avenue and back again.

Steven’s own journey is explored in the feature documentary film “LIFT: a Journey from Homelessness to the Ballet Stage,” which was released earlier this year. The film, which spans six years, tracks Steven as he works with three young dancers in the LIFT program who, just as he himself once did, have to traverse the minefield of economic insecurity to study an artform that in ways financial, cultural and historical would have normally been completely inaccessible to them. 

Here Steven candidly describes the new barriers he is having to overcome in his new role as a cultural leader and envisions how to make ballet a thrilling and relevant artform for all audiences across cultures and backgrounds. 

https://stevenmelendez.com/

https://nytb.org/

https://www.liftdocumentary.com/