Hip-hop, break-dancing and gymnastics may not sound like the usual way to ballet – but they got Jerimy Rivera to the barre all the same.
Now the 10-year-old isn’t only dancing in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” – he’s playing the Nutcracker Prince, a plum role if there ever was one (aside from the Sugar Plum Fairies, of course).
“I get to fight the Mouse King,” Jerimy tells The Post.
“Last year, I was in ‘The Nutcracker’ as one of the party scene boys. I got to do three dances – and jump on the girls’ skirts while they played with their toys!”
Balanchine himself probably didn’t have as much fun choreographing his ballet as Jerimy does dancing it.
Then again, Balanchine didn’t have to do his homework on three subway trains and a bus, the way Jerimy does.
Several times a week, he and his mom commute from Flushing, Queens, to the School of American Ballet in Manhattan.
He joined the school last fall, after a parent of one of the kids in his gymnastics class suggested that Jerimy might make a fine dancer. But the school had already held its auditions. Only after Jerimy’s mom pleaded with them did the teachers there agree to give him a tryout. Apparently, they liked what they saw.
The feeling was mutual.
“When he came here, his eyes lit up,” says Jerimy’s mom, Marylou Arroyo. “He’s always loved to dance.”
“Dancing is fun,” Jerimy says. “More fun than playing Gameboy, even.”
Performances of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” begin Friday and run through Jan. 4 at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. For more info, visit http://www.nycballet.com or call (212) 870-5570.