Houston Ballet Soloists Mackenzie Richter as Odile and Naazir Muhammad as Prince Siegfried in Stanton Welch’sWhen Naazir Muhammad was young, he and his twin brother Shaakir were enrolled in a ballet class in Brooklyn in elementary school and while his brother was a model student, Muhammad was not. The teachers were all female, class was all girls except for the brothers which Muhammad didn't like. He wasn't too good at paying attention."I was actually horrible," he says today.
He must have gotten some answers he like because Muhammad stayed in ballet and now Houston audiences will have a chance on June 17 to see the Houston Ballet Soloist dance the classic role of Prince Siegfried in Artistic Director Stanton Welch's"Getting this role means actually means a lot to me," said Muhammad."For it to come to fruition is pretty surreal to me. I had hoped for it. You can never expect anything; that just leads to disappointment. I just hoped for the best.
Excerpts weren't the only thing Muhammad tackled to prepare for this role. He's been doing extra gym workouts to make sure he had the stamina to do all the lifts called for with this ballet's character who is on stage for much of the three-hour ballet. In addition there are several pas deaux and three solos."So it's a pretty hard night," Muhammad says.
"So we waited till they fell asleep," sneaked into their parents bedroom, grabbed the slip and brought it to school the next day."I'll never forget, the lady looking at the signature and saying 'Your mom signed this?' We were like yeah. I had pretty good penmanship at that point. I knew how to write cursive at that age. My mom had taught me how to write cursive."After that they sneaked out to take ballet classes behind their parents' back.