Gay Mexican dancer José Pablo Castro Cuevas (informally known as “J.P.”) has repeatedly crossed paths with British choreographer Cathy Marston throughout his professional career with the Joffrey Ballet.
Cuevas is set to star in three performances of the U.S. premiere of Atonement, Marston’s new story ballet inspired by Ian McEwan’s best-selling 2001 novel. Atonement has a 10-performance run at the Lyric Opera House in Chicago starting Oct. 17.
Atonement was famously adapted into a seven-time Academy Award-nominated film back in 2007, with such stars as Keira Knightly, James McAvoy and Saoirse Ronan. Marston’s dance adaptation of Atonement had its world premiere earlier this year in Switzerland with Ballett Zürich, where she is artistic director.
“She really spends time in making sure that the story is coming though our acting as well as our steps,” said Cuevas about working with Marston. “It’s very collaborative.”
When Joffrey Ballet presented the Chicago premiere of Marston’s ballet adaptation ofCharlotte Bronté’s novel Jane Eyre in 2019, it also marked the start of Cuevas’ time as an official company member. Cuevas would then go on to create roles in the 2022 Joffrey world premieres of Marston’s one-act story ballets Of Mice and Men (inspired by the John Steinbeck novel) and Heimat, a collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra focusing on a Swiss family gathering.
Cuevas also danced leading roles last year in ballets by other choreographers, such as Yuri Possokhov’s Anna Karenina and Liam Scarlet’s Frankenstein.
But Cuevas and the Joffrey go even further back to 2016. At the age of 14, Cuevas moved from Mexico to Chicago as a student to join the Joffrey Academy’s Pre-Professional Program. His first main stage Joffrey performance was in the 2016 world premiere of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s version of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, which was transplanted to 1892 Chicago, just before the influential World’s Columbian Exposition.
Cuevas then rose through the student ranks of the Joffrey’s Conservatory Program, and was later promoted to its Studio Company. Cuevas was then invited to become a professional Joffrey dancer for the start of the 2019-20 season.
“I was 17 at the time, so it was a little bit of shock to be offered a job before I turned 18,” Cuevas said.
For Atonement, Marston cast Cuevas alongside Joffrey dancers Alberto Velazquez and Dylan Gutierrez to play the leading romantic male role of “Robbie Turner” at alternating performances. Interestingly enough, Cuevas was not aware that “Robbie Turner” is also the same name as a controversial Seattle drag queen who competed on season 8 of the reality TV competition RuPaul’s Drag Race.
But in a different way, the story of thwarted passion in Atonement might resonate with some LGBTQ+ audiences—despite there being no outwardly queer characters.
Atonement centers around the lower-class Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis, the daughter of a wealthy family who own a country-estate in Surrey, England. Though Cecilia and Robbie share a long friendship and a mutual sexual attraction toward each other, their budding romantic relationship is exposed by Cecilia’s younger sister, Briony, with a horrific lie that rips their lives apart.
The way that Robbie’s “forbidden” sexual actions are exposed and used against him is arguably similar to LGBTQ+ people who are forcibly outed by others. Sometimes that previously secret LGBTQ+ identity is used as a weapon against them.
“It is a little bit like you have no control over your own narrative in a way,” said Cuevas when presented with this idea. “Robbie is never given the opportunity to explain himself.”
Robbie’s fictional trauma is completely different to Cuevas, who didn’t experience major drama with his coming out process.
“Thankfully I’ve been in the situation where I had a very supportive family and circle of friends,” Cuevas said.
For Atonement, Marston has choreographed a very steamy lovemaking sequence for Robbie and Cecilia in dance. Dancing Cecilia opposite Cuevas is Mexican dancer Anais Bueno, and he is full of praise and respect for her similar willingness to thoroughly explore the characters’ passions.
“We’re really able to talk about what we need and just accommodate and so we’re both comfortable and not breaking any boundaries,” Cuevas said. “It’s part of our job to just make that connection happen.”
And since the role of Robbie is shared with two other Joffrey dancers, Cuevas said that they’re all taking inspiration from each other in rehearsals to improve their individual performances—be it the dance moves or the acting moments.
“I watch the other Robbies and see if they do something that I could incorporate into my own version,” Cuevas said. “Whether it’s a step, or a way they do the step, or a grip for a certain lift, we help each other—we’re always sharing ideas.”
Since Atonement is a relatively newer story has been adapted into a ballet, Cuevas suggests that audiences could read the novel or see the film adaptation to be more familiar with the plot. But he feels that Marston’s storytelling through movement should be easy to grasp, even among first-time ballet audiences.
“If they haven’t seen a ballet company perform, they should give themselves the opportunity to come to the theater and see a live performance,” Cuevas said. “Give yourselves a treat and see us.”
The Joffrey Ballet’s U.S. premiere of Atonement runs at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, from Oct. 17- 27 with 7:30 p.m. performances Thursday through Saturday, and 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $36-$193. Call 312-386-8905 or visit Joffrey.org.