A kid for all seasons

Like brilliant stars shining out of the darkness and gloom of today's world, the best and brightest of today's kids offer assurance that we haven't yet, after all, toppled into a new Dark Age.

For example, college football has become an embarrassing mess, the current problems in the SEC being just the most publicized of the problems. But today's New York Times carries a story about a college player -- Stanford's Owen Marecic -- who turns all the stereotypes upside down. An outstanding fullback and linebacker on Stanford's sixth-ranked team, he is one of the few players in recent years to play both offense and defense -- at a time when both offenses and defenses have become devilishly complex. And he does so, not as a P.E. major, but as an articulate and hard-working biology major with an A average. While many football players are out partying between practices, Marecic studies late into the night. He spent the past summer interning at Stanford Hospital.

Reading about Marecic reminds me of another accomplished young man -- 16-year-old Kiril Kulish -- a teenager who answers to what I suspect will be a household name, internationally, in another ten years. Kulish is best known today as one of the three original rotating "Billys" in the Broadway production of Billy Elliot, winning a Tony award for Best Actor in 2009. But he is much more than a Broadway dancer and entertainer.

Kulish's parents immigrated to California from Kiev before he was born, and Kiril grew up in San Diego. He was the youngest dancer ever admitted to the Junior Company of the San Diego Academy of Ballet, from which he successfully auditioned for the role of Billy Elliot. As part of his lengthy preparation for the role, he was given intensive training in tap dance, acrobatics, singing, acting, and pronunciation of the Geordie accent of northeastern England, to supplement his already excellent ballet training. Along with another "original" Billy, David Alvarez, he has been described as one of the world's two best male ballet dancers in his age group.

Kulish is also a concert pianist. He recorded a video of his informal performance of the Chopin Nocturne in B-flat and, more formally, of Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, in 2008, shortly before Billy Elliot opened on Broadway.

After nearly a year on Broadway, Kulish grew too tall, and his voice too deep, for the part of Billy, and he "retired" in October 2009. He returned to school in San Diego, where he performed with the San Diego Academy of Ballet, including a starring role in their 2009 Christmas production of the Nutcracker. He now lives in New York, where he studies at the School of American Ballet.

Besides his exploits in ballet and on Broadway, he has also won the U.S. Ballroom Latin Dance championship, and the World Classical Chopin Award. He is a kick-boxer, karate (national awards each year from 2005-07) and taekwondo fighter, an inline skater and skateboarder, and a competitive water polo player. He plays the guitar, presumably when he finds piano tiresome....

What else? I ran into an interview of Kulish prepared for Russian television -- an informal conversation betwen Kiril Kulish and the Russian interviewer as they wandered around New York, showing off backgrounds of Times Square, Lincoln Center, and other iconic scenery. Kulish easily chatted and joked with his interviewer. All in fluent Russian, of course.

As one awestruck teenager commented, after watching one of Kulish's videos, "Jesus ... I've wasted my life."

Kiril Kulish has already accomplished more in his 16 years than most of us could ever do, even if we were granted multiple lifetimes. Some child prodigies burn brightly in childhood, shining at the one thing on which they've focused their entire lives, only to burn out when they hit their teens. But this kid seems too much at ease in his own skin, too well-grounded by his parental upbringing, and too well-adjusted socially for any such sad ending to be likely.

Kiril Kulish. Keep that name in mind. It's a name I predict you'll come across often in years to come.