Chun-Wing Lam, Paris Opera Ballet: “I never danced so well before I had my wealth management firm.”

Interviews

Mar 21

Chun-Wing Lam. Photo by Dominique Guillaudin

Paris Opera Ballet dancer Chun-Wing Lam has accomplished many “firsts” in his life. In 2015, he became the first Hong-Kong Chinese dancer to join the Paris Opera Ballet. Today, he is a “sujet” (third rank out of five in the strict company hierarchy) and probably the only dancer in the world to combine a successful dance career with running his own wealth management firm, PerformenceS, which specializes in giving financial advice to artists and professional athletes. TWoA talked to Chun about moving from Hong Kong to Paris when he was fourteen, about the unique promotion system at the Paris Opera Ballet, and about the artistic and mental benefits of having two careers at the same time.

What is your first ballet memory?

I guess it must be my first ballet lesson. I have always been passionate about music. From the age of three, I started playing on the piano, and I asked my mother for piano lessons when I was five. By the age of seven, I was so passionate about piano that my mother wanted to find another activity for me, which is more social, because I was always alone in front of my piano and also because I was physically more flexible than my sister. My mother had danced a little bit when she was young. She wanted to become a ballet dancer, but at the time, given the circumstances of her family and of society in Hong Kong, she didn't pursue a ballet career. She took me to a forty-five-minute trial ballet class. I cried in front of the school for thirty minutes, I tried for fifteen minutes, and I loved it at the end.

I think what I loved about it was the piano music, because there was a pianist. It was the first time for me to dance. Not really dance - I don't know what we were doing exactly, probably just moving our body along with the music. I loved moving my body with the music. After these fifteen minutes, I asked my mother to sign me up for regular ballet classes.

When did ballet replace the piano as your main focus?

At eleven, I was quite determined to become a ballet dancer. I don't know why. I was still playing piano, I was still having my piano exams and piano lessons, but at that time, I thought: in ballet, I can enjoy music, but I cannot get the joy of dancing in piano.

When you were fourteen, you moved to Paris all by yourself to attend the Paris Opera Ballet School. What was the biggest challenge for you when you started at the Paris Opera Ballet School?

The homesickness. I had never lived far away from my family, I had never traveled that far from home, from Hong Kong. That was really tough. Also, the language: I spoke English, because I was at an English school, but I didn't speak a word of French. Some of my family members passed away during my first few years in France, so that was difficult too. Switching from a part-time training to full-time training was a challenge as well.

The complimentary classes at the Paris Opera School were really, really difficult for me. There was a musical expression/theater class, which required a lot of improvisation and expression and improvising in front of my friends and classmates. Those were things that I wasn’t used to at all in Hong Kong and in Asia in general. We are much more reserved and at school, when the teacher asks a question, nobody wants to answer that question. It's a different culture. I remember very well my first day of school at the Paris Opera Ballet School, I had a theater lesson, and I didn't understand a word of what the teacher was talking about. At the end, we had to prepare a self-presentation, one by one, on stage, in front of the whole class. I had no idea what the teacher asked for. I saw everyone started preparing for their presentation, and I went to the teacher and asked: “What did you talk about? I'm new here, I don't speak any French!”

I hated those exercises of theater and improvisation, those were really tough for me, but very important for my dancing career. All the acting that I have to do now in all the ballets, I was very, very scared of those acting parts when I was in Hong Kong. I didn’t feel at ease at all, I was really scared to act, to have any kind of artistic expression and interpretation. I was just a ballet student executing the ballet steps.

At the end of four years, I certainly felt better because after two years, my French was much better. But I still found the theatre exercises tricky. Now, after many years in the company, I feel much better, but I don’t feel as much at ease as the French dancers do.

When you arrived at the school, was there something that was easier than expected?

Academics. Also, in France, we have much more school holidays than in Hong Kong.

I was very surprised by how different the academic systems are in Hong Kong and France. From 8 a.m. to noon, we had academic lessons, and then from 1:30 p.m. to the end of the day, we had dance classes. I found it very easy in the morning. The homework, the quizzes, the tests and the exams, I found much easier than in Hong Kong, even though the program was more difficult than for French students at regular schools, because we had less time at the Paris Opera Ballet School. We have only four hours of academics per day instead of the whole day, but we were doing the same French National Academic Program. So that was already more difficult than for regular French students, but I still found it much easier than in Hong Kong. I was very pleasantly surprised. The difficult part was French, because even mathematics I had to do in French. But that still wasn't too difficult. For the only time in my entire life, I had 20 out of 20 in mathematics for the entire year, that first year. Amazing.

Let’s fast forward to your time at the Paris Opera Ballet. Could you explain the Paris Opera Ballet Promotional Competition, the unique promotion system at the Paris Opera Ballet?

The promotional competition – the concours de promotion- is a nightmare for me, a nightmare. I got promoted two times, and I got injured just before the concours maybe two, three times. I did many, many concours, I think more than ten, if I include those that I did at school. To stay at the school at the end of each year, we have to go through an exam; we can get kicked out and not go through to the next year. The exam is very similar to the concours that we will know later in the company, because it consists not of a class, but of two variations in front of a jury. We have the same “cloche,” the same little bell, that goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, when it’s our turn. It is very similar.

This is how it works at the opera: one month before the concours, which happens every year in November, the company announces the number of open positions in each level or the hierarchy and the compulsory variation. At the “tablet service,” a kind of board, there will be a paper one month before the concours, everyone will go to that paper and look at the number of positions and the compulsory variations for each level. We will have one month to prepare and work on that compulsory variation, plus a free variation that we can choose from the repertory of the Paris Opera. Outside concours period, we have normal company classes in the morning, with everybody together, but during the month before the concours, we have concours classes divided up by rank. We are divided into six different classes in different studios, with one teacher following each class. The concours class is just a very short class to warm up, and then we will work on the two variations one by one. But during that month, we will also have our usual rehearsals in the afternoon and performances in the evening.

I don't know if it's intentional, but the concours always happens after a very long performance evening. Everyone finishes very late, at 11:30 p.m. We'll go back home; we will not sleep because we are so nervous. And then a few hours later, we are back at the theater for the make-up. We arrive at 7:30 or 8 a.m. for the preparation of the concours. We will do our makeup before going to class. And just after class, we'll go on stage, and it's the concours.

During the preparation period, everyone will look for studios to rehearse, because we want to work more than the others. We have this competition between each participant. Outside of the concours class, there will be a private coach for each dancer, but we have to find the studio to work. But because of the rehearsals and performances, there are very few available studios – there are maybe around sixty to seventy dancers for the concours. Everyone would fight for the whole month to get a studio to work. There used to be no digital system for the studio bookings. We just arrived the earliest possible at the theater, and we would stick a paper on the door of a studio with our name and a time, and then another person would come and take away the paper and stick their own paper on it. Once, I arrived at 6 a.m. at the theater, after an evening performance, to make sure I can rehearse. Now, they changed the system, we can book through an app. It's much better, but it still feels similar. At nine, everyone is just on their phone, pressing refresh, refresh, refresh, to make sure that they have a studio. At least we don’t have to come to the theater at 6 a.m.

The concours itself is open to public. It's like a normal performance; it's on the stage of the Opera Garnier. There is a big audience of ballet fans, critics, magazines, journalists, friends and family. But they are not allowed to clap, so at the end of each variation, there is complete silence. From the stage, we only see the very long table with the jury, it consists of more than 10 people. When the jury is ready for the next dancer, a little bell is rung, and the next dancer goes on stage. It's a horrible experience to live through the preparation, and then the concours. After the concours, there's a vote, and the jury has to vote very quickly. It’s not easy for the jury: half is from the company, including dancers, so our colleagues could be in the jury, and of course the ballet masters, and the director. The other half of the jury are guests from the outside. After the concours, we wait outside the opera, and at some point, someone appears with a paper with the ranking and the decision who gets the promotion. Everyone goes to the paper and cries. The whole drama is so horrible. The most horrible thing is by the time we get the results, it’s noon, and then at 1:30 p.m., we rehearse. We still have the normal rehearsals, and we would be in the same studio with the members of the jury, with the other participants and we will rehearse, and the same evening, we will have a performance.

You are preparing the Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty at the moment. What is special about Rudolf Nureyev’s version of the male solo?

I should have my first show as Bluebird in a week. The Bluebird pas de deux is one of the most technically and stamina-demanding pas de deux. I'm very, very nervous about it, because Nureyev’s version is very difficult. In some versions, in the male variation, there's only one diagonal but in this version, we have two. It's very, very difficult for the stamina, because in the variation, there are only jumps. I work with a physiotherapist and personal trainers to prepare myself physically and I do special cardio training for the Bluebird.

You have a successful dancing career at one of the most prestigious ballet companies in the world – and you also have your own wealth management company. How did you make this happen?

I wanted to further my studies since the beginning of my career at the Paris Opera Ballet, partly because of my host family. I have a host family in France who welcomed me when I was fourteen. I stayed with them during the weekends. They are exceptional people, they are very generous, kind and intelligent. They gave me a lot of good advice in life, like furthering my studies. I started searching for different solutions to enable me to study at the same time as starting my dancing career. I thought of nutrition first, but that would have required a lot of physical presence, which my schedule at the Paris Opera didn’t allow.

I ended up finding a program at a business school in France designed for professional athletes who have their careers at the same time. The program is entirely e-learning, so I could do all the studying from the Opera. The school considered me a professional athlete. It was the only business school in France that offered the same qualification, the same diploma as normal business school students. For four years, I followed that program. Apart from the exams, I could do everything at home or at the Opera. So that worked really well. The internships were challenging. Most of my classmates were athletes at the end of their career, so they had the possibility to take a break to do the internship, whereas myself, I was at the beginning of my career. I didn't want to upset the Paris Opera; I didn't want to be away and miss rehearsals and performances for the internship. I found a solution for that, I was working distantly for a company between rehearsals, during my lunch breaks and whenever I could at the Opera, I also worked in the in the morning before class. I really believe in discipline and the benefits of a regular schedule. I had a huge amount of work to do, homework, studies, reports. But I really believed in spending the same amount of time every day to do the work. And I just did that.

I tried to wake up one hour earlier and spent one hour working on my business school studies before breakfast and ballet class. I keep this routine for my double career today, because in the morning, I'm the most efficient for intellectual work.

I had a personal interest in wealth management, in investment and tax, because the French tax system is horrible, and I really wanted to understand how it works. Little by little, I chose more finance related subjects in the business school. I did my master about financial education in athletes.

After business school came the lockdown.

I didn't know what to do. I thought that, hopefully, I would have more than sixteen years of dancing at the Paris Opera Ballet ahead of me, but I couldn’t just wait for sixteen years with this diploma of my business school. I had to figure out the next step of my business school studies. I was thinking a lot during the lockdown. Eventually, the idea of wealth management came to me, and I did more exams in wealth management. Then I got injured, and I stopped dancing for an entire year. I went to a city in France called Claremont to another wealth management school. I did two years at that school, got my wealth management license and other qualifications.

During the second year, I was continuing my dance career, and e-learning was not an option at this school. Self-confidence was really important. I knew I could make it happen, even though my teachers were very upset at the beginning that I missed almost half of lessons, because I could go only to the morning sections - if I skipped my ballet class - but I couldn’t go to the afternoon classes because there are rehearsals at the Opera. But somehow, I was confident enough that I could make it happen, despite the lessons I had to miss. I studied on my own, I asked my classmates and my teachers. Confidence is very important. If I had told myself from the beginning that it’s impossible, then it would have been impossible. Over the years, I had built this confidence so I could tell myself: “I know that it is difficult. I will miss half of the lessons, but I can make it work.” After the degree, I started my wealth management firm.

What advice would you give to young artists who would like to study something else while starting their artistic career, but who are afraid to do so?

I really encourage them to do it simultaneously. I cannot speak for everyone, but if we have a certain interest in a particular domain or in another profession, I really encourage them to give it a try, because I never danced so well before I had my wealth management firm. I think many barriers are mental barriers. A lot of dancers are parents. A lot of people ask me: “Oh, how do you do it. How do you have your wealth management firm at the same time as dancing?” Actually, it is much easier to manage clients and a wealth management firm than a family and children: having to go to take them from the school or take care of them when they are sick. My firm is much easier. I have a lot of respect for dancers who are parents, and there are a lot of dancers who are parents, and they do it perfectly! It is not as impossible as we might think, having two careers like this simultaneously.

I think it's actually very stimulating. It's very complimentary for me, because I am my own boss. I founded my own firm. I have quite a lot of freedom in everything. I'm very flexible in the schedule, when I see my clients, when I do my work. I can work at any time. It’s the opposite from the Opera because we have rehearsals, the schedule is not flexible at all, but we sometimes have a lot of hours of waiting between rehearsal and the performance, especially when we are understudying a ballet, and during those few hours, if we don't have another occupation that could stimulate us, it's quite frustrating. From that point of view, having something outside ballet is a relief because it allows us to not feel frustrated when we have hours to wait at the theatre. Instead, we can really use that time well. It's also complimentary because one is physical, and one is intellectual work. When I feel very tired from all the wealth management work, it feels really good to dance. And when I feel very tired physically from all the rehearsals and performances, it feels really good to work on something which requires concentration and focus. I find it is very complimentary.

How do you explain that having your own business makes you dance better?

In 2015, when I had just entered the company, I had much less self-confidence. Also, being from a different nationality, I felt very different at the time than how I feel today. Having my wealth management firm definitely made me feel much better in the company, because I feel just more confident. I also have a lot of clients who are members of the company because my wealth management firm is specialized in artists and athletes, which is very rare in France. In traditional wealth management strategies, we don't take into account the specificities of athletes and artists. I have a lot of artist clients from the company, and that created another type of relationship with my colleagues. I feel much closer to them today and more supported by them also in my daily career, and that is key to making me a better dancer in the company. I feel much better in the company today thanks to my wealth management career.