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Toronto Star
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
This ballet prince says farewell to the National Ballet of Canada — Guillaume Côté feels fortunate for his career, but it also ‘really sucks' to leave
Stage The acclaimed principal dancer talks to Michael Crabb about leaving behind 'those magical moments when you felt so free, so alive' and his future as a choreographer. May 24, 2025 4 min read Save By Michael CrabbSpecial to the Star After an illustrious 27-year career with the National Ballet of Canada, internationally acclaimed principal dancer Guillaume Côté is about to take his final bows in a mixed bill appropriately entitled 'Adieu.' The four-part program is bookended by works Côté has choreographed. It opens with 'Bolero,' originally made for a 2012 gala, and ends with 'Grand Mirage,' a new work that will serve as Côté's very personal onstage valedictory. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW MC Michael Crabb is a freelance writer who covers dance and opera for the Star. Related Stories 'Swan Lake' thrills audiences with superb dancing — and the choice to play 'O Canada' at every performance Beyond tights and tutus: The National Ballet of Canada plans an eclectic 2025-26 season 'Burn Baby, Burn': How Canadian ballet icon Guillaume Côté is confronting climate change through dance Report an error Journalistic Standards About The Star More from The Star & partners
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
'Gilmore Girls' creators revisit world of ballet in new series 'Etoile'
"Gilmore Girls" creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino are taking on the world of dance with their new show, " Étoile." The new series follows a New York City ballet company and a Paris ballet company who swap their most talented stars in an effort to save their storied institutions. "Étoile" follows the creative duo's Emmy Award-winning series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," which concluded in May 2023. It is also their second time exploring the world of dance in a TV series after their 2012 show "Bunheads," which starred Sutton Foster, Kelly Bishop and more. It ran on ABC Family for one season. "This was a different take on it," Palladino told "Good Morning America." "'Bunheads' really was focusing on teenage girls in this dance school in this small town. ['Étoile'] is the elite core of dancers, these athletes that have made it and they're working at a level that is highly competitive, very risky." He continued, "You twist an ankle, you hurt your knee, you could be out forever. So, exploring the professional world was different for us and then it gave us an opportunity to do a workplace comedy like 'The Office,' but ... behind the scenes of a ballet, so with pointe shoes, and then the behind-the-scenes at both Paris and New York, the friction, the camaraderie between the two companies." For Sherman-Palladino, who grew up dancing as a child, revisiting the world of ballet was a personal venture. "It all comes rushing back, but it's always you remember how much dancers never stop moving," she said. "They just never stop moving." She continued, "If they're not dancing, they're stretching, if they're not stretching, they're TheraGunning, they're doing push-ups." "It's just a constant whirlwind of like -- it's just not stillness, it's just that movement, that constant movement. It's just sort of an energy being expended," she added. Taïs Vinolo, who plays ballet dancer Mishi Duplessis and who was a former ballerina with the National Ballet of Canada and a graduate of the American Ballet Theatre School, said the world of ballet was accurately depicted in "Étoile" and paralleled her own journey as a dancer. "I really love the way that Amy and Dan represent the ballet world in a very truthful way, as we don't really see that much on TV -- and also, they bring so much fun to it," she said. Ivan du Pontavice, who portrays Gabin Roux in the show but is not a professional dancer like Vinolo, said that after learning the artform from other dancers and immersing himself in dance, he saw how authentic the creators' reflection of ballet was. "I was amazed at how accurate [it is], not only in the writing, but in the directing and in the knowledge that the Palladinos have about ballet," he said. "You know, it's a true, true reflection of the reality of this discipline." While "Étoile" focuses on a new world in the Palladino/Sherman-Palladino universe, fans of "Gilmore Girls," "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" and "Bunheads" will notice the creators' unique style featured throughout the show from their quirky cast of characters to the fast-paced dialogue. Lou de Laâge, who portrays the free-spirited ballerina Cheyenne Toussaint, mentioned at PaleyFest in early April that she didn't speak English fluently before "Étoile," so learning the script and the creators' iconic dialogue style "wasn't easy." "I had to learn English to speak Amy's dialogue," she said. "So that wasn't easy, because there is a lot of fantasy and rapidity and tempo and humor and everything in the dialogue." She added, "It was just work and repetitions, and because the more you repeat the text, the more you do it, the more you find freedom." Du Pontavice, who is also new to the Palladino/Sherman-Palladino universe, said that joining their world was a "roller coaster." "I was terrified and nervous at first, because I felt like I was going from zero to 100 all of a sudden," he said. "It was a big production, and I knew of the Palladinos, I knew of their specific rhythm. So it felt challenging, but at the same [time], it felt coherent." "Étoile" also includes three stars fans might recognize from Sherman-Palladino and Palladino's previous shows: Yanic Truesdale, Gideon Glick and Luke Kirby, who portrayed comedian Lenny Bruce in "Mrs. Maisel" and in the new series plays Jack McMillan, the executive director of the Metropolitan Ballet Theater. Truesdale, who previously portrayed Michel Gerard, the sarcastic and lovable concierge in "Gilmore Girls," said he was "excited" to work with Sherman-Palladino and Palladino again, playing Raphaël Marchand in their new series. "It's just reuniting with brilliant writing," Truesdale said. "At the end of the day, for an actor, everything comes down to the writing, and their world is so creative, so rich, that I got immediately excited to just be with them." He added that the "cherry on the cake is to be in Paris," saying it was "very hard not to be thrilled about every aspect of this reunion." Glick, whom fans may remember as Alfie in "Mrs. Maisel," called the creators "the greatest people to work with." For her part, Sherman-Palladino said she and her husband hope that "Étoile" does more than entertain and sparks conversation about the art world, its legacies and the constant changes it faces. "I hope it speaks to the importance of the arts and the fact that they're under siege right now," she said. "It would be really sad if people don't have these things in their lives anymore, because art is kind of everything. It's the way humanity evolves forward." Charlotte Gainsbourg, who stars in the series as Geneviève Lavigne, the interim general director of l'Opera Francais and Le Ballet National, added, "I think the arts are in danger. So the more we can get something authentic and that grabs an audience and makes people aware that that kind of art form is very fragile, [the better]." Also starring in the new series are David Haig, Simon Callow and David Alvarez.
The Guardian
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘The audience chucked food at us!' Emilyn Claid on angry shows, her ballet shame and gardening for Martha Graham
Maybe it's inevitable by the age of 75 that you've lived a number of lives. For Emilyn Claid, that's meant the leap from ballet dancer in Toronto to the squats of grungy 1969 New York (via Martha Graham's garden), to pioneering the New Dance scene in 1970s London, to artistic director, academic and psychotherapist (not to mention mother, grandmother), and then in her eighth decade, full circle to being a performer again. It was after realising 'I was leaving three-quarters of myself out' that Claid made 2022's comeback solo show Untitled, appearing strong, sensual, funny and provocative, dressed in leather vest and a fur cloak. She put the work in to get back on stage at 72 ('A lot of press-ups and sit-ups') but at the same time, she says, it was absolutely natural, like coming home. 'Not being at home like a comfortable sofa,' she clarifies. 'The excitement of knowing a whole world that's familiar to me and yet is always constantly changing.' The dance world has changed plenty in the six decades that Claid has been working. When she stopped performing in the late 90s, 'it was hard as a woman, as a lesbian, to make lesbian work'. Now Claid is being embraced by a new generation of queer artists. I visit an east London studio to find her rehearsing a 'young and feisty' group of performers (Azara Meghie, Eve Stainton, Adrienne Ming, Orrow Bell and co-director Martin O'Brien) for her new 'live art ballet' The Trembling Forest. Claid is rangy and stylish, with cropped grey hair under a black cap. The group collaboratively work out a scene, veering from giggles to solemnity and back again. Later in the week, they'll be joined by a bigger cast who are all going to be on stage covered in clay. We'll come back to that. It's a long journey from Claid's suburban childhood in Wimbledon. She wasn't very good at ballet, she insists, yet she was good enough to be accepted into the National Ballet of Canada after joining their Toronto school at 16. But she was too tall, always in the background, never going to get further. 'It's a tricky one, ballet, because you get so addicted and so stuck into this [quest for] perfection and getting it right,' she says. 'When you fail at it – when I failed at it – the shame is terrible. It takes years to get over that. But then when you get over you think, Oh thank God! It's incredibly stifling. And for women's bodies, unless you're born that way, I think it's very difficult.' She left for New York in 1969 with the aim of going to the Martha Graham school, turned up with no cash and her English accent, and offered to look after Graham's garden in exchange for classes. 'They thought, she's English, she's bound to know about gardens.' The planting of daffodils aside, this was scuzzy New York. 'It was sex, drugs, dance, risky, wonderful,' says Claid. It was an introduction to many different worlds, discovering the gay scene and basement clubs with 'naked men all dancing on LSD or whatever'. She was squatting in the East Village, or living in the apartment of any artist friend who was away. The kind of apartments with a bathtub in the kitchen and you'd put a table on top to eat dinner. 'Tiny rooms with beaded curtains and cockroaches everywhere.' She was still a teenager. 'But I always felt safe there.' Claid worked with dancers from the Graham company. Nobody had any money but they all seemed to get by. 'There were a lot of patrons, I did a lot of modelling for artists.' She got into some dangerous situations, she admits – 'I guess it's a sort of fancy kind of prostitution really, isn't it?' – but says, 'I was tough.' At one point her parents sent someone over to New York to find her. They did, living in a squat behind a house in the East Village. 'Not a great situation,' she admits. 'My parents must have been freaked out, but there was nothing they could do. I'd left home at 16, I was totally independent.' By the time she came back to London a couple of years later, 'I was pretty wrecked', and suffering from osteoarthritis in her big toe joint. She'd been in pain since she was 11, but kept it hidden. She gave up dance and briefly became a secretary, but the call was too strong. Then Claid met Jacky Lansley, Fergus Early and Maedée Duprès, who together founded the X6 Collective and the New Dance movement. There was a real sense of change, of undoing hierarchies, ripping up the rules, smashing ballet's stranglehold, putting politics at the forefront (their 1977 work Bleeding Fairies blasted the image of the ethereal ballerina and other tropes). They found a home at Butler's Wharf on the South Bank of the Thames, part of a wider experimental arts scene including Derek Jarman, sculptor Andrew Logan (who founded Alternative Miss World) and the London Musicians Collective. They'd put on performances and festivals, all very DIY, no toilet in the building ('you had to go down to the river'), big warehouse doors open on the sixth floor with a sheer drop on the other side. People came and it was buzzing, but again there wasn't any money. Most people were squatting and on the dole – that's what was funding young artists then. What did Claid's work look like? 'I was so angry!' Her whole face breaks into a brilliantly appealing grin and silent laughter stops her talking for a moment. 'Big, clumsy feminists doing angry work! It was very autobiographical. I had eating disorders, there's all sorts of things we were dealing with.' She would speak to the audience, she would dance, 'image making' is the term she uses, which could equally describe the work she's making now. Some of the group went to perform in Lyon, 'And I can remember the audience chucking food at us, telling us to get off. Lots of the work was radically, collaboratively devised. Collage rather than narrative. And of course that was not popular with audiences at the time.' As artistic director of Extemporary Dance Theatre from 1981 to 1990 she pushed radical work, but always tried to be entertaining, too. (Unlike, she says, the very abstract London Contemporary Dance Theatre who 'put audiences off totally'.) Abandoning clear meaning and narrative is still fairly radical, I say. 'I don't ever want to give up on narrative,' she responds. 'I just don't want there to be only one narrative.' As a queer artist, Claid says she particularly embraces the idea of meaning not being fixed, singular or binary. Queerness, she says 'is much more now about a movement rather than an identity; a constant process of unfixing normativity'. She's calling The Trembling Forest a 'live art ballet' because like live art 'the body's creating the material in the moment of the performance' based on tasks or a score she gives the collaborators. But 'ballet' because there is a frame and structure, six scenes. The clay-covered bodies will be the forest (Claid might be one of these, she hasn't decided yet), and they're in what she calls 'long time,' death, essentially, so-named because 'we're going to be dead for a lot longer than we're alive'. And into the forest come the living, a 'motley crew of messy, scribbly, scrabbly bodies'. They know they're heading towards 'long time' and these are their last rituals. 'There's the meta-narrative of hope and desolation, living and dying,' says Claid. Will the audience be able to read that? 'I don't mind if they do or they don't. It's great if people see different things.' In recent years Claid trained as a Gestalt psychotherapist and that's influenced her choreography. The philosophy behind Gestalt is relational, we exist only in relation to each other. Claid talks about the narcissism of being a performer. 'It's all about, 'How wonderful can I be for the audience?'' Now she's more interested in 'What am I going to share with the audience? What can we make together?' When she watches her dancers improvise, instead of thinking, 'Which bits do I like?' She asks them: 'Where did you feel most energised?' The result for us, the audience, she says, is that we see 'something that is alive'. In 2021, Claid combined her work in dance and psychotherapy in the book Falling Through Dance and Life, on surrendering to gravity, and in a more existential sense, accepting the void we're all on our way to. She does physical work with her therapy clients, and sees unequivocally the changes in their lives and relationships as a result. 'What we do with our bodies impacts on our minds.' Career-wise, she's faced the (metaphorical) fear of falling flat on her face. 'I take it right back to ballet, the shame of failing', Claid says, 'and then recognising how that is actually a creative source rather than a dead-end.' She couldn't – and wouldn't want to – define what success means any more. In whose eyes? She quotes from a memorable decades-old review: 'Emilyn Claid gets Dance Umbrella [festival] off to a bad start!' and breaks into another grinning laugh. Audiences weren't ready for her then. Will they be ready now? The Trembling Forest is at Copeland Gallery, London, as part of Ceremony festival, 23-24 April, and at Tramway, Glasgow, 10 May, as part of Dance International Glasgow
Boston Globe
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Boston Ballet announces 2025-2026 season
Boston Ballet's Viktorina Kapitonova and SeokJoo Kim in company principal Lia Cirio's "After." Rosalie O'Connor, courtesy of Boston Ballet Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen describes the company's 62nd-anniversary season as combining 'some really long-term dreams coming true' and 'some visits to friends from the past.' 'Jewels' (Nov. 6-16), which premiered at New York City Ballet in 1967, is an evening-length triptych: 'Emeralds,' to music by Gabriel Fauré; 'Rubies,' to Igor Stravinsky's Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra; and 'Diamonds,' to the last four movements of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Third Symphony. Boston Ballet last did the piece in 2014. Nissinen considers it one of the great dance works of the 20th century, 'a jewel in the classical ballet repertory and also an absolute masterpiece from Balanchine. It's like one of your closest friends. We're just very happy to revisit.' Crystal Pite's 'The Seasons' Canon" will return for Boston Ballet's 'Winter Experience' in March 2026. Rosalie O'Connor, courtesy of Boston Ballet Advertisement The company's annual production of 'The Nutcracker' follows (Nov. 28-Dec. 28). Nissinen, citing this season's 46 sold-out performances of the holiday classic, isn't looking to change it. 'Winter Experience' (March 5-15) will couple Elo's 'Sacre' with Pite's 'The Seasons' Canon.' Nissinen likens the evening to an 'old-fashioned movie double bill, two amazing, contrasting works.' Set to the title Stravinsky score, 'Sacre' premiered in 2009, the final work Boston Ballet danced at the Wang Center. At the Opera House, Nissinen says, they'll have to reconfigure the line of tiny propane fires set along the rear of the stage. He adds, 'As you know, Jorma always tweaks it,' so audiences may be seeing something a bit different from the original. Advertisement Set to Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons' and calling for 54 dancers, 'The Seasons' Canon' was part of this season's 'Fall Experience' in October. Nissinen makes no apology for bringing the piece back so soon. 'It's a massive work that just about everybody related to last year. I have been in love with her work for such a long time, and now I just want to keep Crystal Pite coming in our rep year after year.' National Ballet of Canada's former principal dancer Jillian Vanstone and former second soloist Joe Chapman in Sir Frederick Ashton's "The Dream"; the ballet will be part of the Boston Ballet's 2025-26 season in March 2026. Aleksandar Antonijevic, courtesy of National Ballet of Canada 'The Dream' (March 19-29) pairs Ashton's one-act 'The Dream' with the Stromile world premiere. 'I love Ashton's 'Dream.' I was a 20-year-old young buck in Dutch National Ballet when I danced Puck, and then when I was at San Francisco I did the pas de deux. I also know that many people who come to Boston Ballet come year after year, and I want to show them a different 'Romeo,' I want to show them a different 'Dream.'' Stromile's premiere will be a different piece altogether. He retired from performing after this season's 'Nutcracker' to focus on choreographing. 'This is the 250th anniversary of America,' Nissinen reminds us, 'and I wanted to do a world premiere commissioned score.' Boston Ballet music director Mischa Santora will compose that score; for the choreography, Nissinen says he told Stromile, 'I want to give optimism, hope, for the future of this great nation.' Advertisement Jerome Robbins's "Dances at a Gathering" will appear as part of the Boston Ballet's 'Spring Experience' (May 7-17) also featuring Cirio's 'After" and Forsythe's 'Herman Schmerman." Pictured: Pacific Northwest Ballet in a previous production of "Dances." Angela Sterling, courtesy of Pacific Northwest Ballet 'Spring Experience' (May 7-17) will comprise Cirio's 'After,' Forsythe's 'Herman Schmerman,' and Robbins's 'Dances at a Gathering.' 'After' premiered at 'Fall Experience' 2024, with a score that Cirio assembled from Lera Auerbach's Preludes for Violin and Piano. 'I can't get enough of Lera Auerbach,' says Nissinen. 'I heard so many people loved it, and Lia did a very nice job with the choreography.' Forsythe created 'Herman Schmerman' for New York City Ballet's 1992 'Diamond Project,' and Nissinen recalls that's when he first saw the piece — 'Another pearl on the necklace of William Forsythe,' he calls it. Thom Willems's score is titled 'Just Ducky.' As for 'Dances at a Gathering,' Nissinen says, 'There hasn't been a day in my life that I haven't loved this ballet.' Robbins made the piece for New York City Ballet in 1969, setting it to an hour's worth of music by Frédéric Chopin, mostly mazurkas and waltzes. Nissinen was hoping to do 'Dances' for Boston Ballet's 50th anniversary, but the scheduling didn't work. And finally, 'The Sleeping Beauty' (May 28-June 7), which Boston Ballet last presented in 2023. Nissinen observes that even though Advertisement Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at
CBC
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Nationalism at the ballet? On mounting a very Canadian Swan Lake
Most ballet companies hope for their shows to end with a standing ovation. The National Ballet of Canada's recent run of Swan Lake pulled off something more unusual: every show began with one, too. That's because, for each performance, the ballet classic didn't start with Tchaikovsky's iconic score. Rather, after the house lights dimmed, audiences were brought to their feet every afternoon and evening by the National Ballet Orchestra's rendition of O Canada. For musical director and principal conductor David Briskin, exceptional circumstances called for an exception to ballet's usual sequence of events. "The decision to play O Canada was a way for the National Ballet of Canada to show solidarity with Canadians across the country who are facing challenges in these uncertain times, and to show our Canadian pride." Moments like these reflect the anxiety many Canadians currently feel, as news that threatens people's livelihoods, values and the nation's sovereignty has become an almost everyday occurrence. But, according to Briskin, the national anthem gave audiences a moment to feel a collective sense of support instead. "The result was beyond anyone's expectations. We have been so moved by the emotional response from our audiences — literally from tears to cheers. It seems to be providing a moment of clarity, unity and a little bit of catharsis for people." Supporting both Canadian artists and audiences has always been the mandate of Toronto's globally recognized ballet company. Artistic director Hope Muir says that "since its inception in 1951, the National Ballet of Canada has proudly represented this country at home and on the world stage." And at such a consequential moment, there is perhaps no production better suited to represent Canada than the company's own rendition of Swan Lake. Recreating a classic Originally premiering in 1877 at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, former artistic director Karen Kain restaged this timeless tale of trapped swans and unrequited love for the National Ballet in 2022. Kain, herself among the most prolific Canadian ballerinas of the 20th century, intended for this update to be her parting gift to the company she helmed for almost two decades. Many aspects of her revamp have since garnered acclaim, including its lush, imaginative production design helmed by Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborator Gabriela Týlešová. Yet Kain took many other considerations to ensure that this distinctly Russian ballet was both innovative and endearing to contemporary Canadian audiences. Usually, the details behind a ballet company's creation of a new work would not be public knowledge. But over the entirety of her directorial process, Kain allowed filmmaker Chelsea McMullan unparalleled access to rehearsals, meetings and the everyday lives of the people working together to realize her vision for Swan Lake. Swan Song series trailer 2 years ago Duration 2:08 Swan Song is an immersive new CBC documentary series that brings viewers inside The National Ballet of Canada as the company mounts a legacy-defining new production of Swan Lake, directed by ballet icon Karen Kain as she bids farewell to the company she's become synonymous with. The resulting four-part miniseries, CBC Gem's Swan Song, showed that Kain often made directorial decisions in response to ballet's recent reckonings with racial and gender inclusion. Many in the dance world are still calling for changes to some of ballet's long-standing issues, including the lack of opportunity Black and brown dancers often face. And while acknowledging that as someone whose own professional career started in the 1960s, these concerns still presented a learning curve to her, Kain was nevertheless invested in making her Canadian Swan Lake better reflect the diversity of both the company — and the country. One of Kain's most notable responses was the decision to have Swan Lake's famous corps de ballet (a ballet company's ensemble members) dance on stage with bare legs. Ballet dancers typically wear full-length tights on stage; however, these rarely reflect the skin tone of dancers with darker complexions. While the audience was never far from mind in these decisions, foregoing tights in the Swans' costuming was positively received by National Ballet dancers like Erica Lall. "I love dancing bare legged in Swan Lake; I think it's beautiful" says Lall, a corps de ballet member with the company since 2024. "The Swans are often portrayed as delicate creatures, but in reality, they're powerful and can even be aggressive. Showing the muscularity of our legs really helps convey that strength to the audience." The decision to show the dancer's musculature compliments Kain's desire to characterize the Swans with more nuance. Many scenes in Swan Song show Kain working with former choreographic associate Robert Binet to "humanize" the dancers not simply as Swans, but as women who cope with, and ultimately fight back against, their imprisonment by the ballet's sorcerer antagonist, Von Rothbart. This intention ultimately leads to ensemble choreography that breaks unison at subtle and unexpected moments, and that swells with powerful, collective force in others. What do we stand for? After offering audiences everything on the scale between soft, delicate moments and grand, physical spectacles, the opening night of the National Ballet of Canada's Swan Lake ended much as it started: with a standing ovation. Reflecting upon what drives an audience to participate in these two separate showings of public support, one can't help but consider that the reasons may be quite similar. Indeed, the compelling aspects of Swan Lake's staging, choreography and performance emerge from the company's efforts to represent and empower, however subtle. These are efforts that — much like Canada's own status as a nation — have come under question in recent months. So when audiences give productions like Swan Lake a standing ovation, it may just as well be to celebrate the fact that art of this nature — which carries on a vaunted tradition by helping it evolve — continues to have a place on Canada's public stages. And whether that celebration is in response to O Canada, or a decidedly Canadian rendition of a Russian ballet, one thing is clear: they both have support.
