When Naazir Muhammad was young, he and his twin brother Shaakir were enrolled in a ballet class in Brooklyn in elementary school and while his brother was a model student, Muhammad was not. The teachers were all female, class was all girls except for the brothers which Muhammad didn't like. He wasn't too good at paying attention. "I was actually horrible," he says today.

But then on the last day, the main company did a show alongside the kids' recital. "That was the first time I had seen male ballet dancers, he says. "There was this one Black guy who came," wearing distressed jeans, doing "very, very high jumps. This was the first time I thought it was cool," he says. He was 6 years old at the time.

So he started asking a lot of questions such as why they hadn't learned anything like that in their program.  "Why have we been dancing on our toes for a month?"

He must have gotten some answers he like because Muhammad stayed in ballet and now Houston audiences will have a chance on June 17 to see the Houston Ballet Soloist dance the classic role of Prince Siegfried in  Artistic Director Stanton Welch's Swan Lake.

"Getting this role means actually means a lot to me," said Muhammad. "For it to come to fruition is pretty surreal to me. I had hoped for it. You can never expect anything; that just leads to disappointment. I just hoped for the best."

Swan Lake is, of course, a sweeping romantic ballet set to Tchaikovsky's music. It tells the story of Prince Siegfried and Odette, a young woman cursed by a sorcerer to turn into a white swan during the day. Her only hope of release is if someone who has never been in love, swears to love her forever. Unfortunately enter the black-swan enchantress, Odile.

About a year or two ago, Muhammad performed excerpts of Siegfried's role with Odette/Odile — That was kind of my preparation" — but never the full length ballet.

"It's kind of a complex role; there's a big story behind it," Muhammad says. Siegfried's mother is reminding him it's about that time for him to get married. But he is really unsure. There are several princesses available, but he doesn't feel a real interest in any of them. "Then he finally meets one girl who is amazing and he feels something but he's not really sure what it is about. So he wants to find out more."

Excerpts weren't the only thing Muhammad tackled to prepare for this role. He's been doing extra gym workouts to make sure he had the stamina to do all the lifts called for with this ballet's character who is on stage for much of the three-hour ballet. In addition there are several pas deaux and three solos. "So it's a pretty hard night," Muhammad says.

The most difficult part about it is pacing, he says. "When you get to this level, the steps themselves and balelt is hard but you've done them so much you kind of don't think about it. It's muscle memory. But the hardest part about it is knowing when to push and knowing when to hold back. You want everything to look good, but you can't just go 100 percent the tired time; you're going to be gased by the end of the ballet. So those moments of stillness, I try to actually be still. There's time you're waiting around on stage and you just breathe, you use them to catch your breath."

Getting back to his early beginnings and the bumpy start he had in ballet, Muhammad says the director was willing to give his brother a scholarship but not him. As it turned out his parents were not excited about either of them continuing in the classes. When his father got home , his mother talked to him about it and his response: "'Hell no, my kids are not doing ballet.' My dad's an old-fashioned man from Brooklyn. 'We don't do that where I'm from." He was like no. But we were so intrigued by what this man had done, we  decided we were going to take the permission slip and sign it ourselves.

"So we waited till they fell asleep," sneaked into their parents bedroom, grabbed the slip and brought it to school the next day. "I'll never forget, the lady looking at the signature and saying 'Your mom signed this?' We were like yeah. I had pretty good penmanship at that point. I knew how to write cursive at that age. My mom had taught me how to write cursive."

Once the permission slip was signed, they were both on scholarship, Muhammad says.

After that they sneaked out to take ballet classes behind their parents' back. "We used to have a guy who drove us to and from school. His name was Mr. George, a family friend. We would tell him that we were at after school and he couldn't come pick us up  until 6 p.m.  But we were really at ballet class.

"Our parents eventually found out and we got in a lot of trouble, but I think once they saw how passionate we were about it they kind of said "All right. We'll let them do this."

After seven years at Brooklyn Ballet School and six years at American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, the brothers then went to Houston Ballet Academy.  Naazir Muhammad came to Houston six years ago, drawn in part by the fact that one of his idols, Carlos Acosta (now artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet) had danced with Houston Ballet in the early '90s.  Muhammad's brother Shakkir left to dance with the Norwegian National Ballet. Their father has changed his mind and is a strong supporter of both of them, Muhammad says.

Asked if he thinks his presence will inspire more minority kids to become involved in ballet, Muhammad says:.

"Hopefully. First you’ve got to get them to the show. That's how I changed my mind about it. By seeing someone who looks like me out there."

Performances are scheduled for June 8-18 at 7:30 p.m.  Thursday, Friday and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sunday at the Wortham Center, 501 Texas. For more information, call 713-227-2787  or visit houstonballet.org. $25-$220.