Craig Hall Talks city.ballet.

November 28, 2001

Can’t get enough of
city.ballet.
? Every Monday, we’ll be posting a new interview with a different cast member from the AOL On docu-series about New York City Ballet. This week, we talk to soloist Craig Hall.

One of the most interesting city.ballet. revelations is the idea of the soloist rank as a kind of purgatory. There’s the rush of excitement that comes with the promotion—but ultimately soloists dance a lot less than corps members, and they’re competing with a whole roster of principals for choice roles.

Soloist Craig Hall had an additional burden to bear recently, too: He tore his Achilles tendon while city.ballet. was filming. The documentary charts the course of his recovery. “I hadn’t really talked to anyone about my injury—except on camera,” he says. “In a way airing all of that out in public was like a therapy session for me.”

The best part, he says, is that his arc in the series ends at a high point: We see him back onstage, performing the Spanish dance in Swan Lake. “There was something very revealing in watching myself go through that whole process,” he says. “It was real. It was terrible. But I was able to move on.”

Watch the full city.ballet. series at dancemagazine.com.