Isaac Hernández appears remarkably perky given that he is coping with the demands of getting back on stage coupled with the far more exhausting needs of a new baby. Sitting in one of the spacious reception areas of the English National Ballet’s new home in Canning Town, the dancer — a lead principal with the company — looks far younger than his 31 years, with a deliciously unruly mop of curls and dark, expressive eyes. He proudly shows off photos of little Mateo, who has clearly inherited his parents’ good looks —his mother is the company’s artistic director and supremely elegant Spanish ballerina, Tamara Rojo.
His arrival has clearly changed Hernández. “Mateo came along and gave me a sense of purpose,” he says. “I wondered what it was going to do for me on the stage. What I found was that there was a lot more clarity in my head about what dance meant and what Mateo meant for me as well. I was able to let go of a lot of noise which was in my head before. It went away and I was able to enjoy my time dancing. But then right after the performance would finish, I would think of Mateo and run back to him. I realised that even though dance is my identity and has a very important place in my life, it is no longer the only source of happiness that I have.”
Fatherhood has come as a shock, albeit a pleasant one. “The first week was a little bit overwhelming because it is a 24-hour job,” he says. “The first few days we stayed in the hospital, we had the help of the nurses, but then the first day you arrive home you really feel alone. Obviously, there are some days when you really just need to rest and the third time he wakes up [at night], you really struggle with that, then he smiles at you…and that’s it. It has the power to really change you.”
If dealing with one baby is hard, Hernández can only look back with awe at how his parents coped. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, he was number seven in a family of 11 children, which he says was “Old Testament” in its size. They were very active in the Jewish community in the city. “We grew up with the idea that we would eventually move to Israel to live on a kibbutz. My father was obsessed with that idea, my mother didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it, so we were going in that direction. We were getting Hebrew lessons and we took part in our community’s Israel 50th anniversary celebrations.”
With other members of the local community preparing to make aliyah, a move to Israel looked on the cards. It was only when the subject of compulsory military service came up that the mood changed. “My mum got really scared and we decided to wait a little bit. They continued to put it off and that’s how we didn’t end up going on a kibbutz. If you talk to my dad nowadays, he still regrets not having done that, but in a way, he made his own kibbutz at home!”
Hernández inherited the determination to be a dancer from his father Hector, who wanted to dance against the wishes of his own father, who was an architect. It was only when he died that Hector, aged 15, plucked up the courage to leave home and train to be a dancer. “He was taking three or four classes a day, trying to make up time, and that is how ballet got into our family.”
With such a large family, money was tight and the children were home-schooled. It was a challenge keeping them occupied. “My father said he was sitting on his bed and asking God what to do with us, and he thought, well, let’s teach them ballet. He asked us, ‘Do you want to do ballet?’ Up to that point we had no idea our parents had been ballet dancers. We had not even mentioned the word ballet. So they set up a barre in the backyard and started training us there. That changed not only my life, but the rest of my family’s life.”
Displaying a formidable talent from a young age, along with his brother Esteban, now also a professional dancer, Hernández started travelling abroad to take part in competitions. At 13, he left to train in Philadelphia at the Rock School for Dance Education. “I felt it was just another trip, I didn’t realise I would never go back to living at home ever again. It was quite nice to spend my teenage years there because the directors of the school were very good people, they understood that it must have been hard for me and they became my surrogate parents.” His older sister joined him to keep an eye on the teenager. “I was lucky to have her there because she was not trying to be my mother, she was just trying to keep me company. I still had the feeling of freedom, of being away from parents.”
At the school, Hernández trained with a variety of teachers — American, Russian, Danish and French — who imparted the strengths of their own techniques and styles, enabling him to develop an impressive versatility. “Even though they were all different, they understood that they were not trying to make me dance in a particular way, they were just trying to make me a good dancer.”
His first professional job was at American Ballet Theatre II, the second company of the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. From there he moved to the San Francisco Ballet for more opportunities and bigger roles. “I really got pushed. It was a whole other way of working, I was completely exhausted. San Francisco taught me to be a very quick learner as a dancer and work with a variety of choreographers. There are very few companies that do that. What I found was, I was missing full-length ballets. That’s what I wanted to do the most, and I wanted to know what it’s like to dance in Europe.”
A job with the Dutch National Ballet followed, where he stayed for three years further polishing his technique and developing his stage presence to tackle the most arduous three-act ballets. The rising star also made guest appearances with other companies around the world — including a stint at the London Coliseum in Swan Lake with the English National Ballet, followed by an invitation to join the company on a permanent basis. He says he came to London without any intention of staying but was astounded by Rojo’s work ethic. “The experience was so good. I used to dance one performance and then the next day I wouldn’t show up to class because I thought I needed the recovery time, but every morning you would see Tamara there before anyone else, in class every day, rehearsing and running the company. So I started doing that as well, and I started improving a lot and having some of the best performances I’d ever had.”
Lockdown has proved a challenge, and, like many dancers, he took to doing his daily class in his kitchen. “Tamara decided she was wanted to teach classes online. We quickly realised that the days that we wouldn’t train would be a nightmare, because we would just be in a bad mood and not be motivated to do anything else, so dance became a way to remain sane, to feel good physically and to keep connected to that passion and profession.”
Hernández has also been keen to give back some of his skills and knowledge to the children of Mexico, by organising workshops and other events in the country. He has a production company there, which was badly hit by the pandemic. “It was really hard at the beginning because my next five years were planned. I had invested a considerable amount of money and that was really hard to deal with — the uncertainty of not knowing when it was going to end.”
Like athletes and footballers, the career of a dancer is often short. “A few years ago I had a very clear idea of what I want to do after I retire. I have spent the last 10 years working to build that transition. I always thought I would want to be in politics, but my country is a little bit tense at the moment. I do not know if I would truly be able to make a difference. During the pandemic I started working with my brother who is a computer programmer. We started a tech company and we are doing quite well. We have investors from Israel, Mexico and Poland.”
He may eventually leave the world of ballet completely, but it will not be easy. “You will never know what it’s like to be on a stage again, to hear that audience and to feel that adrenaline. It’s unique, for me it’s the moment of freedom that you feel on a stage when your body is perfectly in shape and you can listen to the music and decide what to do with it. I think what brings me the most joy about my career is that feeling of total freedom. It feels quite amazing and because I love that feeling, I don’t want to be on a stage when I can no longer accomplish that.”
