The following is an online extra from the August 2019 issue of Richmond magazine, heading to newsstands soon.
Local audiences might remember Max Föllmer best as the young prince in Richmond Ballet’s productions of “The Nutcracker” several years ago.
Max Föllmer (Photo by Chris Hardy courtesy San Francisco Ballet)
Now 19, Föllmer reached new heights in his career when he joined San Francisco Ballet’s corps de ballet this year.
Föllmer began dancing through Richmond Ballet’s Minds in Motion outreach program in fourth grade, after which he enrolled in the School of Richmond Ballet. His first major dancing role was in “The Nutcracker” at age 12.
“It was exciting to kind of take on my first challenge onstage,” Föllmer says.
His former teacher, School of Richmond Ballet Director Judy Jacob, chose him for the role.
“I just knew those are big roles for children and onstage with company members, and so it takes a certain amount of confidence and poise to really pull that off, and he certainly had that,” Jacob says.
Valerie Tellmann-Henning, a former ballerina who performed as the Sugar Plum Fairy and other leading roles in “The Nutcracker,” says she did not know Föllmer very well, but she remembers that he stood out from other children in the production.
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Judy Jacob helps Max Föllmer and Ella Spruill rehearse for the roles of young prince and Clara in “The Nutcracker” in 2014. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Max Föllmer in a School of Richmond Ballet Workshop Performance (Photo by Sarah Ferguson courtesy Richmond Ballet)
“There was just something about him. He had a focus that many of the other little kids didn’t have,” says Tellmann-Henning, now the Richmond Ballet’s public relations and content manager. “And he had a creativity about him; he sort of got lost in his own little creative world onstage.”
For one class, Jacob says she choreographed an advanced dance for Föllmer that she would not be able to reuse for the next year’s student.
“He needed to be challenged, and … we needed to continually be giving him more and more advanced work at a fairly rapid pace,” Jacob says. “You could tell early on that he was really talented, gifted.”
Föllmer says he became a Richmond Ballet trainee at age 14. A homeschooled student, he was able to dance during the day.
In 2017, he travelled to Switzerland to participate in an international ballet competition, the Prix de Lausanne, as one of five American competitors. Back in Richmond, dancers watched Föllmer perform via livestream video.
“Everyone was just super proud of Max being from the school and going … to this really cool competition and putting himself out there,” Tellmann-Henning says.
Föllmer was not selected as a winner, but one of the teachers from the competition offered him a place in the San Francisco Ballet’s trainee program.
“First getting the offer to be in the trainee program here was a big deal for me, because it was something I was hoping that I would accomplish,” Föllmer says.
Max Föllmer (second from left) performs with the San Francisco Ballet in a production of "The Sleeping Beauty." (Photo by Erik Tomasson courtesy San Francisco Ballet)
After a year as a trainee, Föllmer became an apprentice with San Francisco Ballet, and this year he was promoted to the corps de ballet. He has performed in shows such as “Don Quixote,” “The Sleeping Beauty” and “The Fifth Season.”
“I’m so thrilled, very proud,” Jacob says. “I think all of us who worked with him here at Richmond Ballet are extremely proud of him.”
Föllmer credits Richmond Ballet with shaping the dancer he became.
“The way that they taught me and the stuff that I took away from them is definitely much more than just the base of who I am as a dancer now. It’s most of it,” he says.
Asked whether any particular performance has shaped him as a dancer, Föllmer says he sees more of a cumulative effect.
“I think the defining moment is all the work that I put in each day to kind of arrive at the place where I am now,” he says. “Rather than one moment where I kind of felt things coming together, I think it was just ... a culmination of all those mornings that I didn’t necessarily want to go and put in the work that day, but I did.”
