JEAN’S GRAND FINALE
After almost two decades, Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand-maître plans to retire by 2022 after assisting in a three-year transition period.
Alberta Ballet’s longest-serving artistic director, Jean Grand-maître, will step down after a three-year transition period that will see him passing the torch to Christopher Anderson by 2022, according to an announcement from the ballet company scheduled to be released Tuesday.
Grand-maître — who joined Alberta Ballet in 2002 as artistic director — will remain in the role for the 2020-21 season, which will include new work from both him and Anderson. In 2021-22, Grandmaître and Anderson will share duties as co-artistic directors. In the 2022-23 season, Anderson will take over as artistic director while Grand-maître will remain as an artist-in-residence for the company.
“I’m in a place now, and I’m realizing it every day, where I need more challenges,” said Grandmaître, 56, adding he has no plans to retire from the performing arts.
“Directing a ballet company is extremely demanding: finance, raising funds, raising donors, raising repertoire. After 20 years, it’s not like I feel like I’ve been there and got the T-shirt, but it feels like I’ve given it everything I could and I want to try new challenges.
“John Murrell, the playwright, was an old friend and (he) passed away a couple of months ago. He always told me, when you enter in the last phase of your career — which I’m going to be entering into now — he said, ‘Make sure in your last decade you really stick to what you like to do. That you really dedicate your precious time to what is most inspiring for you.’ “
Grand-maître recommended Anderson as his replacement, having brought him to the company in 2015 as Ballet Master. Anderson had a 16-year career as a dancer prior to his appointment at Alberta Ballet, including stints at the Boston Ballet and Salt Lake City’s Ballet West.
The long goodbye for Grandmaître will mark the end of an era for Alberta Ballet. A native of Hull, Que., Grand-maître boosted the company’s national and international profile and increased its local audience through his unique, forward-looking vision that included creating the Portrait Ballet Series as collaborations with Joni Mitchell, Elton John, k.d. lang, Sarah Mclachlan, Gordon Lightfoot and The Tragically Hip.
Grand-maître said the current political climate under Premier Jason Kenney and the UCP also influenced his decision.
“I’m looking at the new policies from the new provincial government and what’s happening with arts funding and what’s happened to the film industry and what might happen to the performing arts,” he said. “When I got here in 2002, it was still Ralph Klein. But I still felt like he had more understanding of the need for arts and culture than Kenney. It’s just frustrating for me to see what’s happening because it will bring me back to 2002 and I don’t want to go back in time. That’s one of the decisions I made, that I wasn’t going to go back and fight another government and explain why we need arts and culture. I’ve done it too many times.”
Grand-maître said he is proud of what Alberta Ballet has achieved in the past 18 years, creating a company that can “dance classical ballet, that can dance to Elton John, that can dance the most abstract works and inhabit the world of Shakespeare with great intensity” and cater to a diverse audience. He said he sees his time with Alberta Ballet as his artistic peak. He added he will also create another portrait ballet that he hopes will be announced within the next couple of weeks.
The portrait ballets began with Fiddle and the Drum, Grandmaître’s 2007 collaboration with Joni Mitchell that has been performed in Calgary, California, Vancouver and Toronto and became the subject of a documentary film that screened worldwide. His collaboration with k.d. lang, 2013’s Balletlujah, was also turned into a film by the CBC.
Daryl Fridhandler, chairman of Alberta Ballet’s board of directors, said the series expanded the audience for Alberta Ballet, bringing in fans of the respective artists who may otherwise have never attended a ballet.
“They are immensely creative and becoming more and more creative and adaptive to technologies and trends of the day,” said Fridhandler. “He’s never without societal comment. It’s not just the music, he overlays his own commentary in the portrait ballets. Alberta Ballet and portrait ballet and Jean Grand-maître are all synonyms right now. It’s a legacy hopefully that will carry on beyond Jean. But Jean will carry this legacy on wherever he goes. It’s not just in his blood, it is him.”
While some of his ideas are certainly outside of what is considered traditional ballet, Grand-maître said he always felt supported by Albertans.
“This province really welcomed me with such open arms, such warmth and welcomed my ideas,” Grand-maître said. “I’ve never had anyone confront me for being French-canadian or being gay. Alberta is a really open-minded province, the way I see it. It’s been extraordinary to come here as a Quebecer after 10 years in Europe and say, ‘I want to do all these things,’ and Alberta says, ‘Go for it, try it.’ They’ve never held me back.”