A toehold in Paris
National Ballet of Canada returns to the City of Lights
Karen Kain was just a junior principal dancer on the cusp of international stardom when the National Ballet of Canada made its Paris debut at the storied Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Now, 45 years later and as artistic director, Kain is leading her company back to the City of Lights and the same stage.
“This is something I’ve very much wanted to do,” Kain says. “I just felt we had the perfect production and the dancers to do the work justice.”
In Paris, the national ballet will perform Nijinsky, which John Neumeier describes as his “choreographic approach” to a dance phenomenon, the legendary early 20th-century dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.
Made for his own Hamburg Ballet in 2000 and acquired by the National Ballet in 2014, Neumeier’s Nijinsky takes audiences into the hallucinatory realm of the Russian dancer’s disturbed mind.
Hamburg Ballet performed Nijinsky in Paris 14 years ago, but there’s a twist that makes the National Ballet’s presentation there unique.
Hamburg Ballet performed it at the Paris Opera’s ornate Palais Garnier.
The National Ballet’s production will step into history: the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées — in 1913, the city’s first art deco building — is where Nijinsky himself danced and where the premiere of his avant-garde staging of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, referenced in Neumeier’s ballet, provoked an audience riot.
“It’s going to be a special feeling,” says longtime company principal dancer Guillaume Côté, who despite much professional globe-trotting will be dancing in Paris for the first time as he reprises Nijinsky’s title role on opening night.
“There’s such a huge weight of history in that theatre,” Côté says. “To think I’ll be dancing on the same stage Nijinsky danced on more than a century ago; it’s such an incredible privilege.”
Kain’s career as an international guest artist took the famed ballerina back to the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées several times with other companies after the National Ballet’s 1972 visit.
That international experience is something she wants her own dancers to enjoy today.
“I had the privilege of dancing all over the world,” Kain says.
“Certainly, it was a different era, but why does it have to be only my generation that were able to feel they were part of an international dance world?”
The short answer to Kain’s question, as company executive director Barry Hughson explains, can be summed up in a word: money. The Paris trip is costing close to $900,000.
As costs have risen, the whole infrastructure of international touring has shrivelled radically since Kain’s dancing days. The great impresarios have vanished. Major theatres, happy in principle to open their doors to foreign companies, have at best mea- gre presenting budgets.
Meanwhile, touring grants that once helped catapult companies such as the National Ballet onto international stages are sorely diminished.
Instead, companies with plenty to offer artistically but lacking marquee names, have to raise the bulk of the money for international tours themselves. So why bother? “It’s a massive investment,” says Hughson, “but in the end all boats rise.”
Hughson points out that establishing an international profile is key to attracting and retaining world-class talent. Success abroad, he says, also offers a kind of validation and inspires the company’s local supporters.
“It’s important not to be overlooked on the world stage,” Kain insists. “I don’t want us to be some company that ballet fans have perhaps distantly heard of, off there somewhere in North America. I want us to be seen.”
Since becoming the National Ballet’s artistic director 12 years ago, Kain has made it a personal goal to see that happen, taking her company back to London, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.
With Paris in her sights, the issue was finding the right venue for dates that would not disrupt the company’s hometown schedule; plus, of course, that little matter of cash to cover the costs.
As in the past, the National Ballet’s friends have stepped up to the plate, notably in this case Halifax-based “exclusive tour partners” David and Margaret Fountain, part of a philanthropic Nova Scotia dynasty that has generously supported a wide range of charities and causes.
Some 30 National Ballet donors will also travel to watch the Paris performances.
Despite the logistical hurdles involved, including adjusting the Neumeier-designed Nijinsky set to fit the smaller Paris theatre, Kain is heading off on a cloud. “I think it’s going to be pretty fantastic,” she says.
The first time the National Ballet visited Paris it was part of the company’s seven-city debut European tour. Such extensive international appearances are nowadays beyond the reach of all but a small handful of the most exalted and well-heeled troupes, and even then it’s a stretch.
Even so, the National Ballet has another transatlantic gig on its schedule.
In recognition of Canada 150, Britain’s Royal Ballet has invited its Canadian cousin to London to perform Robert Binet’s The Dreamers Ever Leave You, the response by the company choreographic associate to the austere beauty of Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris’s northern landscapes.
Binet originally conceived the work in 2016, to be performed at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Now, a joint cast of National Ballet and Royal Ballet dancers will give the 30-minute ballet six performances, Oct.12 and13, in the vast industrial space of the Printworks in Canada Water, part of London’s Docklands are. Both performances are sold out.
After its Oct. 3 to 8 engagement in Paris, Nijinsky will be seen at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts Nov. 22 to 26; at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Jan. 25 to 27, 2018; and in San Francisco April 3 to 8.