Former Alberta Ballet star dies in car crash
Jonathan Ollivier a former member of Alberta Ballet
Members of the Calgary dance community were mourning the loss of British dancer Jonathan Ollivier Monday, after learning that the former Alberta Ballet dancer died in a car crash on the weekend.
Ollivier, 38, the principal dancer for Matthew Bourne’s company New Adventures, was riding his motorcycle Sunday to the Sadler’s Wells in London, where he was scheduled to dance his final performance in The Car Man. Police say Ollivier died after a collision with a car. The driver was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.
Matthew Bourne described Ollivier Monday as “one of the most charismatic and powerful dancers of his generation.”
During his stay with the Alberta Ballet, from 2007 to 2009, Bourne danced in a number of shows, including Othello, Alice in Wonderland, Mozart’s Requiem, The Fiddle and the Drum and many others, including Who Cares?/ Carmen, during the ballet’s 2007 tour of China.
Dancers Yukichi Hattori and his wife, Galien Johnston Hatboth, performed with Ollivier during his years with the Alberta Ballet.
“My wife and him danced a lot together,” said Hattori. "So I think she was quite heartbroken.
“Whatever people say about a person — all the cliches: generous, nice, kind, friendly — he was all that, without any decoration on top of it, really.”
For Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand- Maitre, what stuck about Ollivier was a unique combination of rough and tumble background — he grew up poor, in Northampton, England — and a gentleness of spirit and manner that touched everyone who knew and worked with Ollivier.
“His life was not unlike Billy Elliot,” said Grand- Maitre.
“As a dancer: Phenomenal. I called him the Marlon Brando in tights, because he could act like no other dancer. He had such masculine presence onstage. And he ( also) had this gentlemanliness about him.
“It’s an incredible contrast between his personality, which was so sweet and so kind, and this masculinity, that was so almost harsh — it had a lot of grit. That was what was so fascinating about him as an artist.”
Grand- Maitre and the ballet will pay an informal tribute to Ollivier Saturday night, by watching some films of him dancing and telling stories to celebrate his life.
Grand- Maitre exchanged emails with Ollivier’s mother Monday morning, where he reminded her of something Orson Welles once said that could also apply to her son.
“It’s not how long the star shines,” he said, “but how bright. Somehow, your son did achieve a lot.”
Ollivier leaves behind a wife and two young children — one of whom, Lucas, was born in Calgary.
Ollivier trained at the Rambert School of Dance and had been a principal dancer at Cape Town Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre and the Alberta Ballet.