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CBC
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Two longtime collaborators on why Guillaume Côté might be the best of Canadian ballet
After 26 years dancing with the National Ballet of Canada, Guillaume Côté will take his final bow tonight. The Quebec-born ballet dancer and choreographer has been lauded over his long career for his unique blend of technical perfection and artistry, and how his charismatic presence shines through even on a stage full of incredibly talented dancers. From portraying Romeo in Romeo and Juliet to Prince Charming in Cinderella and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, he has made some of the most iconic roles feel fresh. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud talks with two of his longtime collaborators, dancer Greta Hodgkinson and choreographer Anisa Tejpar, about his legacy and why he just might be the greatest of all time in Canadian ballet. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Greta, you were 11 years old when you moved to Canada to attend the National Ballet school. That's the same age that Guillaume moved here from Lac-Saint-Jean. You both grew up to become principal dancers with the National Ballet, so you logged a lot of hours together. Tell me, what's he like to dance with? What's the thing that sets him apart? Greta: I would say he's an extremely generous partner. His partnering skills are amazing. But he's also got so much energy. He gives so much onstage, and he gives so much to his partners. It's really wonderful. And you could sort of feed off each other. There's a lot of trust there, obviously, dancing for so many years, but yeah. He's very, very generous. Elamin: What I really enjoyed watching there is the way that both of you are nodding at the same moments. We were talking about this just before we went live, because Anisa finished a sentence with just hand gestures and Greta was like, "Yeah, totally understand what that means." For those of us who have not danced, let alone danced with Guillaume, when you say "fantastic partnering skills," what does that mean to you, Greta? Greta: Well, he understands where the ballerina's weight needs to be. He's strong in lifting. That sort of innate ability to partner is hard to teach. I mean, you can teach the technique, but the feel, if you will, of where the dancer needs to be off balance, on balance — he's very talented in that way. Elamin: Let's talk about the other part of his career for a moment, Anisa, because he's been a choreographer for a while. And he did not start choreography as a transitional step out of dance. He started at the peak of his career, more than a decade ago. When you think about Guillaume as a choreographer, what's the thing that he's trying to do with choreography? Anisa: That's a great question because I think when you've been an interpreter like he has for so many years — he's done the canon of choreography, you know, the Swan Lake s, the Giselle s, the Sleeping Beauty s that have lasted way longer than our lifetimes — he's done them all. Every major choreographer has worked with him around the world. When you are the vessel for someone else's ideas, when you are the interpreter of someone else's concepts, vibes, a weird brain pattern — at some point you think to yourself, what if it was my ideas? What if it was coming from me? What if I was the source of what we were making, and then I had these wonderful artists in front of me interpreting me? Now, the way I put it I think maybe sounds egotistical, but it's not because ultimately the more you interpret, the better you get at creating. And with Guillaume, because he has been able to achieve such milestones in his career as a performer, it felt so logical for those of us who knew him. It was not a surprise when he started creating work. His mind is fast-moving, always inspired; this man doesn't stop…. And it only felt natural for him to, like, put pen to paper, to explode onto other people, and to show what he has. It's vulnerable. It's courageous. It's hard to make work. But I think because of the type of person that he is, the experience that he's had, the wealth of knowledge he has in the medium, he's the ideal candidate to make.
CBC
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Guillaume Côté keeps his fire alive with Burn Baby, Burn
After Guillaume Côté gives his final performance with the National Ballet of Canada this Thursday, he'll be spending his first day of retirement in a seemingly unlikely place: right back in a theatre. Only this time, it won't be Côté who's performing. "On June 5, I retire from the National Ballet of Canada," explains the soon-to-be former principal dancer. "On June 6, I launch my company's run at the Bluma Appel Theatre. For me, that is the most symbolic thing that could happen." Côté is wasting no time in taking the next steps of his career after nearly three decades as one of Canada's most renowned ballet dancers. From June 6-8, his eponymous company Côté Danse is partnering with TOLive and Show One Productions to present Burn Baby, Burn, an evening-length work choreographed by Côté to be timely yet innovative in its movement, music, and message. While the curtain may be drawing on the Québec-born artist's time on stage, yielding that stage to a new generation of Canadian dancers is perhaps what excites him most about this new chapter. "I'm so proud to use [my] name and to use my company to elevate other young artists," says Côté. "I'm extremely ready to be in that mentorship mode." Next Chapters in a Storied Career Côté – who grew up in Québec's rural Lac Saint-Jean region – began choreographing in his mid-twenties at the height of his dance career. He was appointed as the National Ballet of Canada's choreographic associate in 2013, allowing him to create repertory works there while pursuing independent projects with artists including Robert Lepage and Thomas Payette. But Côté was motivated to form his own company during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he recognized as having a substantial impact on working dancers. "When the pandemic hit, I wanted to shift my career more towards choreography, but I also wanted to shift to the Toronto dance community," he says. "I wanted to start giving back. And the thing that amazed me is the amount of incredible talent that there is in Toronto." Since Côté Danse was created in 2021 alongside executive director Etienne Lavigne and associate producer Anisa Tejpar, the choreographer and artistic director's work has been directly influenced by the Toronto dance talent he's gathered. "He's quite open," says Carleen Zouboules, a dancer from Red Deer, Alta. who's worked with Côté since the company's beginnings. "When he gives you a movement and you do it slightly differently, you feel safe to do so, which is great." With a choreographic approach that follows his dancers' lead rather than strictly dictating their movement, Côté has been able to expand beyond his ballet background to form a unique contemporary movement vocabulary, one he says is on full display in Burn Baby, Burn. "This production was a way for me to develop an aesthetic that's between the classical dance I'm from – with its form and shape and patterns – and one that gathers dancers from all these different backgrounds, puts them all in a room together, and starts to meet between our worlds," he says. Dancing in a World on Fire The result of that gathering process is a piece with dynamic physicality that showcases each performer's specific technical competencies, while emphasizing their cohesion through long durations of unison ensemble work. For Côtê, the piece has great personal significance, as well. "It all started because my son has major climate anxiety. We go on a walk one day, and he turned to me and was like, 'Dad, what do you do for climate change? Why aren't you doing something with your art?' And I said, 'Well, that's very true; I haven't done anything with my art.'" This close-to-home conversation was indeed the spark for Burn Baby, Burn. However, Côté was conscious not to choreograph with a moralizing intent to "change the world with this show." Rather, he was inspired by traditions and metaphors of dancing as an act of escapism. In Burn Baby, Burn, that dancing comes at the expense of ignoring the reality of global warming. "I love the idea of the disco inferno; where the world's on fire, but we keep dancing," says Côté. "People can expect to see a show that's about the denial of climate change, but essentially it's a big, burning disco party to their death." With that party being scored by composer Amos Ben-Tal and decked out in costumes by Yso South, Côté ultimately aims for Burn Baby, Burn to entertain with a cruel twist of irony. Igniting New Flames The opportunity to present work like Burn Baby, Burn, along with the collaborative approach taken to create it, has been among the most rewarding aspects of Côté's next steps as a dance artist. "I lived in the ballet world, where the form is very strict, and the way of working is very strict. So to transition to having my own company in the contemporary world has been absolutely liberating." There have also been aspects of Côté's transition that have been more sobering, such as learning and navigating the financial realities of running a dance company in 2025. "The National Ballet of Canada has a huge following, and that's a really beautiful thing that they've built over 70 years of history," he says. "So to go from being at that world class international organization with everything at your fingertips to putting our own money on the line to do something because we really love it…that's the challenge." Yet despite those barriers, Côté is enthused by the goodwill and momentum that he's carrying from the National Ballet of Canada to "a coming out of his company that's on fire." With ultimate dreams of giving dancers full-year contracts and to support other choreographic talent, Côté is working to ensure that the adieu to his career as a dancer is instead the prelude to a bigger next chapter: not only for him, but for other dancers he's driven to support.
