Steven Meléndez, with Puerto Rican roots, never imagined that classical ballet dance would give his life a 360 degree turn.
“Ballet changed my whole life,” Meléndez said.
It all started in 1992, while he and his family were living in a shelter in the South Bronx. At the age of seven, Steven was discovered and accepted into “Project Lift,” the New York Theater Ballet’s community service program that seeks out New York children in disadvantaged communities and introduces them to ballet.
“A lot of the people who grew up where I grew up didn’t have the same luck,” Steven explained. “Imagine, the South Bronx in the early 90s, as a Hispanic kid growing up in that area I don’t want to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been in a ballet studio every day.”
After an international career in the world of dance, Meléndez returned to where it all began: he went on to direct the same program that changed his life, and last year he became artistic director of the school.
“A lot of people have a misperception of dance stereotypes and I really hope to change that…in the studio everyone is the same.”
In a small studio at St Marks Church on the Lower East Side, Meléndez leads a group of young people of many nationalities who no doubt admire him on a daily basis.
“To have that pleasure, that honor to work with Steven who has had a unique life, a unique life, is a real pleasure,” said NYTB alumnus Charles Rosario.
Like Meléndez, Tiffany Cordero came to dance thanks to the program. She is very familiar with Steven’s work and they work together recruiting children from shelters to become future classical dancers.
“At first I saw him as a God because you know, he was on stage dancing, everyone admired him. And so did I, but I can say that he was a support system for me,” Cordero said.
And since they say that dance doesn’t care who you are or where you come from, Meléndez did not hesitate to teach me the complex movements of this style of dance.