Hello, James! (Again)

Below is from the latest issue of Connecticut VOICE, the quarterly magazine for the LGBTQ community and its families and friends….

Frank Rizzo caught up with James Whiteside, principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre — and VOICE’s first cover boy — has always been an outspoken guy.

Whether it’s as a star of both classical and modern dance, as electro-pop music creator under the moniker JbDubs or in his drag persona of Uhu Betch, the Fairfield native speaks with frankness—and snap.

Now, the talented multi-tasker shares the tea in “Center Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet,” chronicling his dance challenges, bad Grindr dates, family trauma and his own ego, pride and search for intimacy.

“It doesn’t feel like a memoir to me,” he says during a Zoom interview from his Brooklyn apartment. “I’m 37 for fuck’s sake,” he says laughing. “Why should I be writing a memoir?”

Among essays about his pets, sketches and a mini-play, Whiteside tells playful, sad, joyous, painful tales. Think of it as confession with the lights turned all the way up and with a dance beat playing in the background.

“I wrote the book carrying a lot of baggage around with me and I felt that as I wrote I would drop little bits of it off. By the time I finished, I just felt lighter.”

I told him it seemed more like a biography of another, younger much wilder, and self-centered self.

“Yeah. It’s like a very long apology.”

“To whom?”

“Everyone and anyone really.”

But there’s also much humor in the book, too, as he writes about his love of ballet—and butts, which he says is one of the draws for gay men who become fans of the art form.

“I’m always flattered to be objectified frankly,” he ….CONTINUED