Chuck Arnold
As Mick Jagger’s partner of 10 years — with the promise ring to prove it — former prima ballerina Melanie Hamrick choreographed the rock ballet “Port Rouge” that was inspired by the music of the Rolling Stones.
But despite their decade-long pas de deux, Hamrick — who retired from the American Ballet Theatre after 15 years in 2019 — doesn’t give Jagger any notes on his legendary moves.
“Nah — he’s an expert, he’s got it down,” Hamrick, 37, told The Post. “I would be honored [to help] if I was asked, but he knows what he’s doing.”
Besides, Hamrick is busy making her own sexy moves, pirouetting into coital choreography as an erotic novelist.
After steaming up the publishing scene with “First Position” in 2023, she’s back for more arabesque action with its sequel “The Unraveling,” released this week.
The danseur debauchery — in which Sylvie Carter prances across the pond from the North American Ballet to London — gives all types of satisfaction. The kind that is needed after all that getting tight in those tights.
“You know, young dancers … they are coming into their sexual maturity in their early 20s,” said Hamrick, who will have a book launch event for “The Unraveling” at the Upper East Side’s Corner Bookstore on Aug. 20. “They’re traveling the world, they’re surrounded by people who love ballet as much as they do, and have an environment of sexual tension.
“Like, you maybe didn’t have a high school boyfriend, so your first boyfriend’s in your early ’20s, and he’s a ballet dancer who was your first partner. It’s very much that kind of coming of age.”
And if you are sensing some “Fifty Shades of Grey Goes to the Ballet” vibes, you wouldn’t be wrong.
“I was definitely inspired by ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ ” said Hamrick of E.L. James’ 2011 best-seller that set off a trilogy of books and a movie franchise. “And I felt, ‘I think we’re missing some ballet.’ ”
And Hamrick drew on her experience to get X-rated in those graphic passages.
“It’s like choreographing a ballet … You’re choreographing a scene, you’re choreographing intimacy,” she said. “So it’s kind of like I went about it as choreographing movement, choreographing bodies.”
No doubt — there is an inherent drama to the ballet world that Hamrick leaned into with all of her torso-twisting flexibility.
“I think it’s the competitiveness,” she said. “People are against each other when the world is so small and there’s so very few jobs … Like, ABT maybe hires three to five dancers a year.”
After turning this new page, Hamrick would “absolutely” love to see her books get the “Black Swan” treatment on the big screen.
‘I absolutely loved it,” she said of the 2010 film that won Natalie Portman a Best Actress Oscar as tortured American Ballet Theatre dancer Nina Reeves.
“She has the stage mom, she has some issues with food, she has the relationship with the boss, she has the competitiveness with the other dancer … Those are all things that happen.”
For the Williamsburg, Virginia native, switching positions as a novelist has been “therapeutic” in her ballet retirement. So was choreographing 2019’s “Porte Rogue” with a little help from her “Street Fighting Man.”
“I told him the songs I wanted. He said, ‘OK,’ ” she said. “And he helped me find the places to cut and move them together.”
So what’s the Stones song that always gets her jumpin’?
“Well, I love ‘She’s a Rainbow,’ because that was my favorite piece in the ‘Port Rouge’ choreography,” said Hamrick of the psychedelic-tinged track from 1967’s “Their Satanic Majesties Request.” “And I love ‘Whole Wide World’ on the new album [‘Hackney Diamonds’].”
And although she may no longer be a dueling diva for that primo part in the ballet world, Hamrick hasn’t lost her competitive edge with Jagger, who, at 81, is 44 years her senior.
“He’s in great shape,” she said. “But then, you know, the competitiveness in me [kicks in], like, ‘How long did you stay on the bike for? I’m gonna stay longer!’ ”
Still, there is no doubt who their 7-year-old son Deveraux moves like. “More like Mick,” said Hamrick. “He was taking a couple of ballet classes. He’s got a lot of talent, and I can’t wait to see what he does.
“One minute he wants to be a scuba diver, and the next he wants to go to space, and the next he wants to be a dancer. It’s, like, all over the place with what he wants to do.”
This post was originally posted by NYPost
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