Jovani joined NYCB as a soloist from Miami City Ballet in the fall of 2019. His talent and kindness were obvious immediately, and we are so lucky to have him as part of our team. We talk about how weird it is to be without work right now, especially for Jovani who has returned to his hometown in Brazil for the majority of the pandemic. We follow his journey as a young boy in Brazil at a Bolshoi satellite school, to the Balanchine style at Miami City Ballet. Jovani is very into Kundalini yoga, Reiki and meditation, which I absolutely love, and we talk about how necessary healthy coping mechanisms are in our industry. Oh yeah, and we also break out the counts for the entire finale of Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia, so that you get a little taste of the madness/complexity of the counts we have to memorize for our choreography sometimes.