Spring 2015 Ballet Review A Conversation with Evan McKie from Ballet Review Spring 2015 On the cover: Olga Smirnova and Evan McKie in Onegin at the 2014 Youth America Grand Prix Gala. Photograph by Hideaki Tanioka, YAGP ©2015 Dance Research Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 New York – Susanna Sloat 5 Stuttgart – Gary Smith 6 Boston – Jeffrey Gantz 8 New York – Karen Greenspan 10 Berlin – Darrell Wilkins 13 Washington, D.C. – Christine Temin 15 Paris – David Mead 17 New York – Christopher Caines 20 Washington, D. C. – Lisa Traiger 23 New York – Nina Alovert 25 New York – Harris Green 86 Michael Langlois Ballet Review 43.1 28 A Conversation with Richard Alston Spring 2015 Kevin Ng Editor and Designer: 40 A Conversation with David Hallberg Marvin Hoshino Managing Editor: Karen Greenspan Roberta Hellman 46 The Early Work of Anne Teresa Senior Editor: De Keersmaeker Don Daniels 28 Marvin Hoshino Associate Editor: 52 Russian Avant-Garde Joel Lobenthal Associate Editor: Leigh Witchel Larry Kaplan 56 Liam Scarlett Webmaster: Nina Alovert David S. Weiss 62 Divine Diana Copy Editors: Barbara Palfy* Vincent Giroud Naomi Mindlin 66 Nicolas Nabokov at the Ballet Photographers: Tom Brazil 40 Marvin Hoshino Costas 73 Beauty and Nothing Else Associates: Gary Smith Peter Anastos Robert Greskovic 80 Evan McKie George Jackson Elizabeth Kendall Joel Lobenthal Paul Parish 86 “This Is Her Mother” Nancy Reynolds James SuRon Joel Lobenthal David Vaughan 92 A Conversation with Irina Baronova Edward Willinger 62 Sarah C. Woodcock 105 London Reporter – Clement Crisp 109 Jenifer Ringer – Jay Rogoff 110 Music on Disc – George Dorris 116 Check It Out Cover photograph by Hideaki Tanioka, Youth America Grand Prix: Onegin with Olga Smirnova and Evan McKie at the 2014 YAGP Gala. The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. (Photo: Stuttgart Ballet) 0 ballet review Evan McKie themandIwenttotheNationalBalletSchool.” McKie says he got into a lot of fights. “I just didn’t fit in. I wanted to design my whole life – everything – to do things my own way. That wasn’t popular back then. It probably still Gary Smith isn’t today.” When he first watched The Sleeping Beauty He’s probably the last of the real danseurs as a boy, he thought ballet was all about girls nobles. The porcelain good looks – body like a in floral skirts. “I learned later it was about Lladro figurine – coupled with the soul of an grown-up men, too. Men who can dream oth- artist make him special. er lives, fly through space, land on a dime. I Watch him in class. You see a man who bat- learned it was about men who aren’t afraid of ters at borders. Watch him onstage and you being powerful and vulnerable at the very recognize total commitment. He has the line same time.” and elegance of a young Anthony Dowell, the In a sense, this is the essence of Evan visceralintensityofapassionateNureyev,and McKie. Watch him onstage and you realize the spirit of someone unique, like the exqui- he’snotfrightenedbyemotion.He’snotafraid site Evelyn Hart. to let feelings come out. Couple this with the Sitting across the table from me in one of physical, the overt perfection of his dancing, his favorite Stuttgart restaurants, he talks and you have an artist of rare gifts indeed. “I about the man who lives inside the masculine, was drawn to the European style of dance, elegant frame. “I suppose if I’m honest I don’t somethingsoprevalentinStuttgart.Thatstyle reallyknowwhyIbecameadancer.Ijustknew is more dramatic, more passionate, at least drama and dance went hand in hand. When I to me.” was a child I moved around the living room Certainly McKie’s performances there, in a almost in a trance. The music unlocked some- number of great works, from Béjart’s Songs of thing inside. It was about letting the joy out. a Wayfarer to Albrecht in Giselle, from the lead It’s all about release. Even then I knew I nev- role in Romeo and Juliet to anything by William erwantedtobemechanical,tojustdancesteps. Forsythe, prove he has the Stuttgart style. The I always knew you were only stopped by the rolemostidentifiedwithhim,however,isJohn limits of your imagination.” Cranko’s Onegin. McKie dances it like no one Born in Toronto, Evan McKie went to Cana- else. He finds Onegin’sarrogance at the begin- da’sNationalBalletSchool,butleftasateenag- ning,thedarkByronicspiritthatfillsTatiana’s ertogototheKirovAcademyofBalletofWash- young heart, then he surrenders in the final ington,D.C.,andfinallytheJohnCrankoSchool act to the desperate longing and regret that in Stuttgart. “I was always restless, searching leaves the man drained of all hope. for a better way to do things, trying to let in- Today McKie is its greatest interpreter for ner feelings come out. I don’t think I was nar- critics in Paris, Stuttgart, and Moscow, where cissistic, nothing like that. I just never spent he has startled audiences with his mercurial too much time looking in the mirror watch- passion. His Onegin is simply a model of per- ing myself dance. I learned very early on I fection.ReidAnderson,artisticdirectorofThe would never be satisfied with what I would Stuttgart Ballet, and something of an Onegin see there. specialist, says McKie’s performance is now “Although I came from a loving family, as the best in the world. McKie has found dark- achildIjustwantedtobenoticed.Maybethat’s er, fomenting undercurrents in the man, cou- still true today. At eight years old I took tap pled with a touching vulnerability. and jazz and loved it madly. People kept say- “Dance is about bodies, that’s true,” McKie ing I had a ballet dancer’s body so I believed says, “but it’s also about brains. And it’s cer- ©2015 GarySmith 1 tainlyaboutwhatweconcealinside.Ifeelvery strength in his work. He’s poured his passion vulnerable when people look into my eyes. I’m andsadnessintohisstageperformances,mak- secretive I suppose. I have private and person- ing stunning connections with the characters al ways. It’s embarrassing to say that. There he plays. He’s a tortured and powerful Ham- is a real difference, you know,between a stage let in Kevin O’Day’s dramatic ballet. He’s an life and one that’s supposed to be real. I’ve said incredibly evil Iago in John Neumeier’s Othel- in the past I don’t know who Evan McKie ac- lo. And he’s a beautiful but lonely Siegfried in tually is. Maybe I’m more real onstage than I James Kudelka’s Swan Lake. In a sense these am sitting here talking.” performances came from newfound strength Healing from a relationship that left him in the face of adversity. shattered and in pain, McKie has found “I think I know myself better now,” he said Swan Lake with Svetlana Lunkina. (Photo: Aleksandar Antonijevic, National Ballet of Canada) 2 ballet review Swan Lake with Anna Osadcenko. (Photo: SB) recently. “Now I think my favorite character conversation with the audience. Before, I is myself. That wasn’t the case before. I’ve be- didn’t know how to let go ofcertain things. come more intuitive. I know it’s okay to be up- They just got in the way.” set, to feel regret. I’ve always felt like the ugly McKiethinksbacktohistrainingfordance. duckling of the ballet world, no matter how I “I wanted this military Russian training. That look in tights. means using your body from the tip of your “It’s now about getting to know myself head, to the tip of your toes. Everything must and accepting who I am. It’s also about what be pushed onstage. I want to show an audience, what I want to “To do the roles I want to do, roles that are share with them. I want my dancing to be a beyond classical ballet, I have to deconstruct spring 2015 3 The Sleeping Beauty with Greta Hodgkinson. (Photo: Bruce Zinger, NBC) and let it all go, then find a way to put it all wayslive d in extremes. There have been sur- back together. It’s a process of breaking my- prises, tough things I didn’t see coming. So self down to bring myself up again.” what? It’s about using what happens to make Self-analytical and aware, McKie examines yourself stronger and a better dancer.” every aspect of performance. “I use the ten- Then some months ago McKie shocked the sion that I have and the inner frustration I feel dance world by giving up his role as one of to create the pieces that I dance. I’m still the Stuttgart’s principal dancers to join The Na- samepersonIwas,I’mjustmoreawareofwhat tional Ballet of Canada. Leaving a strong com- I want and how I can make my vision happen. pany with an international reputation, as “I’m thirty-one. There’s a huge difference well as all those wonderful Cranko ballets, from when I began dancing. Then too, I’ve al- couldn’t have been easy. 4 ballet review “I always thought I’d have to forgo a home- ple there have changed. There were roles I ground career,” McKie says. “It was a surprise wanted to dance and they weren’t offered. The then to be invited by Karen Kain to guest in disappointment is that I could have grown Toronto.” McKie’s performances as Albrecht more,butIdidn’thavetheopportunities.That in Giselle, Florimund in The Sleeping Beauty, was frustrating for me. I felt I wasn’t moving Lensky in Onegin, and Siegfried in Swan Lake on.It’simportanttokeepsearchingandlearn- had critics raving. He was a fresh and as- ing.” tounding addition to the Canadian company. When I ask McKie what’s important to him He also had a purity of line and elegance not as a dancer he smiles again.