'Mariko is a diamond': After 17 seasons, Alberta Ballet principal dancer Mariko Kondo's final performance will be in Don Quixote
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Kondo played the White Swan.
'I didn't think of going to Dubai at the end of my career,' she says with a laugh, 'But it was something I had never experienced before. The city and the beautiful opera house. Everything was more than I imagined.'
But Kondo says the timing feels right for her to take her final bow.
'The injury was a big thing for me,' she says. 'I was injured in 2022, and I had pain since, but somehow I danced. But it is time for me. I don't know, but I just feel physically and mentally, it's a good time.'
Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Kondo began dancing at the age of six. She trained at the International Ballet Academy in Japan and Canada's National Ballet School before joining Leipzig Ballet in Germany.
While in Toronto, she made a tape of herself as an audition for Alberta Ballet, which was then led by former artistic director Jean Grand-Maitre. She arrived in the city in 2007 during the Calgary Stampede.
'I didn't know anything about the Stampede and I saw people wearing cowboy (hats),' she says. 'It was quite interesting to me. Because I didn't see that in Toronto or any other city. It was nice sunny weather. I didn't think I would stay this long. I was quite excited, that's for sure.'
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