National Ballet prepares for first Russian tour

The first time Karen Kain visited Russia, it was 1973 and the Soviet Union was facing major food shortages.

The Canadian ballet star needed sufficient sustenance, as she and Frank Augustyn were competing together in the International Ballet Competition in Moscow, and she remembers waiting in lineups at grocery stores for hours only to get such meagre offerings as a cucumber.

“There was nothing to eat,” Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, recalled in a recent interview. “I wasn’t very big at the time and I lost 15 pounds in two weeks there.”

As the National Ballet of Canada prepares for its first-ever tour to Russia this month, Kain expects art to transcend politics like it did back then, when she and Augustyn ended up winning awards and met “a lot of wonderful people” who cared deeply about the craft.

She’s since returned several times, including a milestone 1977 performance the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, and come to realize: “You can’t judge a population by their politics - you judge them by the individuals that you have relationships with.”

“It’s a wonderful way to have the arts be a diplomatic gesture,” Kain said.

“I hope it’s emblematic of something greater and bigger than politics and the way countries are run. I hope it serves a higher purpose as well as being an amazing adventure for all of us.”