(pulsing music)
- Well I've always been different,
not wanted to be different.
And just the heels at a very young age
was just a great statement for it.
I do what I want and (bleep) you.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)
(hip hop music)
♪ Look at all these fools ♪
♪ They keep trying to be cool ♪
- I'm Yanis Marshal, I'm a French Dancer, Choreographer,
and I'm known, I guess, to be a man that dances in heels.
(hip hop music continues)
♪ Now watch me run this ♪
♪ Look at how I run this ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
Heels is definitely not
just putting a pair of heels
and starting to dance with them.
That's not what we're trying to do.
We're trying to really make it a new style.
Just as you would put it as hip hop, jazz, and ballet.
♪ Now we got something in common ♪
I have choreographed a Cirque du Soleil show, Zumanity.
I've worked with Celine Dion and Ryan Reynolds,
I was playing Deadpool but in heels.
♪ Look at how I run this ♪
♪ Just run this ♪
- Thank you so much!
(crowd applauding and cheering)
(electronic music)
- [Yanis] I'm happy when people tell me that it looks easy
because it really isn't.
When I dance I always try to make it look effortless.
(electronic music continues)
The risk of dancing in heels is very simple,
you can fall at any moment.
(giggles)
I think the secret
is never to forget that you're wearing heels.
When I teach, I do tell my students
that it's not enough to be a good dancer.
They have to be stars in their own way.
They have to have, what I say the most, is charisma.
(Yanis clicking tongue in time)
I chose art because, like many different artists I'm sure,
it was just a way of expressing ourself.
And dance was my way of screaming, pretty much,
or saying things that I couldn't.
Now I'm pretty outspoken.
That wasn't always like that.
I think dance helped me become like that.
(plane engine roaring)
(electronic music)
People would only focus on the heels,
just the heels, the heels.
And at some point I was like,
"It's not just the shoe itself,
"It's what it represents."
It's the fact that men are not supposed to do it.
It's the fact that
if I'm going to walk on the street with them,
people will stare.
(electronic music continues)
You can't disassociate that
being gay and dancing in heels as a man.
You can't.
And I think some people have to do it
so that others can feel it's okay to do it.
Not just in your room.
I started very young.
My mother decided to put me up
in a professional training dance school.
And as I was getting older I had my sexuality happening,
and so the heels came with that.
I just think it's a little bit easier,
for sure, to be gay now.
Definitely when I was 15 and where I was from it wasn't.
It was not.
Yeah.
No, no but I was still gay.
Same. (laughs)
I didn't need heels, trust me.
You knew.
(electronic music)
(laughs)
Right, left, right, left.
I've been told that when I teach a class,
that I also teach them a little bit about life.
More than just dance.
Throw in front, woo.
Because I think it goes together.
You can't be this great, rebel dancer
if you're not like that in real life.
I am like that.
The way I dance is the way I am.
Woo! (crowd laughs)
I don't believe I'm the first man to dance in heels.
At all.
I think what I've done is made it very okay to do it.
I'm definitely aware of the influence that I have.
I only do what I do so I can inspire people.