Canada’s National Ballet: 50 Years of Evolution by Paula Citron

It was clear with the founding of the National Ballet of Canada in 1951 that a future national ballet school was a necessity. and are the two remarkable women who co-founded Canada’s National Ballet School in 1959. As Oliphant wrote in her autobiography Miss O: My Life in Dance: “Celia Franca and I knew that a good company needs a good school to feed it.” James Neufeld says in his book Power to Rise: The Story of the National Ballet of Canada: “(Franca) was a teacher of professionals and saw with a teacher’s eye that the raw material before her had to be shaped and trained. Teaching would be the key to the company’s success.”

The NBS is commemorating its 50th anniversary this year, and there is much to celebrate. The school is considered among the top professional ballet academies in the world. Just as the Herculean efforts of Oliphant and Franca helped found the school, so have the innovative policies of Oliphant and her chosen successor, Mavis Staines (class of 1972), help raise the school to its lofty perch in the world of dance education.

On the recommendation of Dame Ninette de Valois of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, Franca came from England to in 1951 to found the National Ballet of Canada. Betty Oliphant, who had arrived from England in 1947 as a war bride, ran a successful ballet school in the city. Oliphant was asked by Franca to become the company’s ballet mistress. From 1969 until 1975, Oliphant was also the company’s associate artistic director. And so began a troubled relationship and a clash of egos that would never be reconciled. (Oliphant passed away in 2004 and Franca in 2007). As an example of their personal discord, Victoria Bertram (‘63) recalls that whenever Oliphant attended company performances, she’d leave her coat in the dressing room Bertram shared with Mary Jago, rather than have to face Franca in the artistic staff room.

Prior to the founding of the NBS, the two women oversaw intensive professional training during an annual 4-week summer school in order to upgrade technique. It was a command performance for both company dancers and potential company dancers. The establishment of the NBS with Franca as director and Oliphant as principal gradually took over the role that the summer school played in technique training. (The last summer school was held in 1965.) After a predictable battle of wills between these two strong women, Oliphant got the board of directors on side and assumed complete responsibility for the school as both director and principal. Her comeuppance, as she calls it in her book, came when Franca made a speech from the stage at the National Ballet’s 25th anniversary gala and failed to mention Oliphant among the people who helped build the company.

The NBS is unique in North America because it is the only professional ballet academy to offer elite dance training, academic studies (grades 6 to 12), and residence facilities in one complex. It makes for a long day, with academic classes from 8:30 until 3:30, followed by the ballet program which can end as late as 6:45. From the onset, Oliphant, with Franca’s support, mandated that the school should be an autonomous entity from the National Ballet. She felt it necessary to avoid the problems she saw in Europe when a school director was under the authority of a company artistic director. Oliphant wanted complete control over the students’ best interests. She also believed that students should have the freedom to choose their own career path and not be obligated to join one company. As a result of this independence, NBS graduates are artistic directors, choreographers, dancers, teachers and administrators in 65 companies world-wide. In 2003, to reflect the open-arms nature of the NBS’s role in the country, the official name became Canada’s National Ballet School. (The NBS students are distinguished by their distinctive green and grey uniforms, kilts for the girls, trousers for the boys, modelled after the British schools of Oliphant’s youth.)

Oliphant’s goal was to produce an international class dancer whose technique was, in her words, “without affectation or mannerisms” and so could absorb any choreography. Says (’63): “Celia’s emphasis on what she wanted for a company dancer was a sound technique base and strong musicality. Betty’s focus was cleanliness, purity and grace of lines. She stressed the importance of port de bras, fluidity of motion and a mobile spine.” By all accounts, Oliphant was a dichotomy. She could be devastatingly cutting in her comments to students (“cruel”, “nasty” and “insulting” are other epithets that came up in interviews), yet she fancied herself a benign force because she encouraged the students to speak up over issues. One positive description of Miss O is “honest”, even if she did cut to the quick.

That the students were very intimidated by Oliphant, there can be no doubt. Bertram thinks Oliphant’s toughness stemmed from her belief that the profession itself was brutal and she was training her students to be prepared for the worst. Says (’69): “Betty was a troubled woman who accomplished a lot of amazing things, and she did try to be forward thinking and wise. Nonetheless, we did what we were told and kept our mouths shut. I didn’t start voicing opinions until my late 20s.” What is fascinating is that all these long years after the fact, middle age NBS graduates still slip into calling the women “Miss O” and “Miss Franca”, such was the force of their authoritarian personalities.

Kain also raises a note of caution about NBS training in the early years. “Betty tried to be careful and not harm our bodies. She was reacting to bad training that she had experienced in England, but she was too careful. When I went to the Moscow competition in 1973, I realized just how behind we were in terms of classical technique.” Kain mentions weakness in turn out and extensions, for example. To some extent, Tennant agrees. “We weren’t razor sharp in the legs or in fast turns,” she says. Kain also remembers getting weighed every week. (The scales disappeared in 1971 when Oliphant realized the weigh-ins were causing eating disorders.) Kain points out that Oliphant had difficulty being objective, particularly about the handling of more gifted students. On this point, long time NBS teacher Sergiu Stefanschi concurs. “Betty did get results, but she was impatient. She tended to move the students along at the same pace.”

Oliphant’s overall achievements as an educator of elite ballet students cannot be denied. In 1963, Eugen Valukin from the Bolshoi Ballet made his first of several visits to teach at the NBS and his influence on training was seismic. Valukin, Erik Bruhn and flamenco teacher Susana Robledo were just a few of the master teachers Oliphant brought to the school. As well as the daily technique classes, ballet-related classes included eurhythmics, creative dance and pre-character (waltzes, polkas, gallops) for the junior school, while the older students took classical variations and repertoire, pas de deux, character dance (stylized ethnic dances), and flamenco (for rhythm and style).

The all important performance component began under Oliphant and includes the annual spring showcase, participation in National Ballet productions such as The Nutcracker, the student recital at the AGM, and lecture/demos on the audition tour. Not to be forgotten are the choreographers Oliphant engaged to set works on the students like Rudi van Dantzig’s Four Last Songs. Oliphant was also instrumental in starting the choreograph workshops that produced talents like (’73), Dominique Dumais (’86) and Matjash Mrozewski (’93).

The NBS has been erroneously called first, a Cecchetti school, and latterly, a Vaganova school. In the case of the former, Oliphant and Franca chose the Cecchetti method to be the basic training tool of both the summer school and later, the NBS, because that had been the anchor of their ballet education in England under such teachers as Antony Tudor. Oliphant even coached Franca when Franca took her certification to become a Cecchetti examiner. All the older graduates well remember the toil of those Cecchetti exercises, but Cecchetti was not the only NBS educational pathway.

Teacher Deborah Bowes (’65) is both manager of the NBS junior school and the annual audition tour. “The students’ short term goals were the Cecchetti examinations,” she says, “but there were also what Betty called the free ballet classes which had a much broader syllabus than Cecchetti. Over the years Betty developed her own technique pulled together from teaching principles she had experienced in England, Denmark and Russia. While both Betty, and Mavis after her, did have a deep respect for tradition, they really were avant-garde, pushing limits, and always looking ahead. They both believed in keeping ballet relevant and exciting.”

Staines enrolled in the NBS teacher training program when her dance career was cut short by an injury. She joined the NBS staff in 1982, was appointed associate artistic director in 1984, and became artistic director in 1989 when Oliphant retired. One of her first major decisions was dropping the Cecchetti syllabus in 1991 in favour of a training program, unique to the NBS, that is an amalgam of Cecchetti, Vaganova, and other established educational principles. “It was, therefore, no longer a priority for us to bring in external Cecchetti examiners to evaluate the effectiveness of NBS training,” explains Staines. “During evaluation week, NBS staff, with guests from the National Ballet, put their fingers on the pulse of how effective our revamped curriculum is proving to be.” In other words, the entire artistic staff is involved in identifying each student’s strengths and weaknesses. Videos are used so the students can be aware of their own dance in development. The dance teachers also meet regularly to discuss their own professional development. Says Staines: “The syllabus is constantly evolving to best reflect the changing demands of the ballet world today. “And Bowes adds: “Vaganova terminology, which is more commonly accepted around the world, replaced Cecchetti. This means that NBS students can take class anywhere and understand the instructions.”

Staines is universally admired for where she has taken the school in terms of both philosophy of education and internationalism. Says Kain: “I love that Mavis is so ambitious for the school. She understands that ballet is a world stage. She makes things happen.” Tennant refers to Staines’ “hungry vision.” Oliphant began the NBS international outreach. For example, just before her retirement, Oliphant was in the process of negotiating a student exchange with the Bolshoi school. Dance as a global village has been a high priority for Staines. She has links to elite ballet academies all over the world, and a big part of the NBS’ 50th anniversary celebrations is built around the Assemblée Internationale (please see sidebar). Staines founded the network of professional ballet schools 20 years ago, and student exchanges with these 25 partner schools occur every summer. For example, Tina Perreira (’01) attended Rosella Hightower’s Ecole de Danse in Cannes.

When asked to describe the evolutionary process at the NBS during Staines’ tenure, Stefanschi and Bowes both point to the strong focus on the individual, with each student allowed to develop at his or her own pace. “I think the biggest change,” says Bowes, “is the way we encourage good risk-taking. Our dancers not only have strong classical training, they are also fearless. That’s because we’re not as concerned to get perfection right away. Process is stressed, and this makes dancers less tentative. Our approach is more holistic and realistic, rather than focusing on immediate results.” Staines, almost ruefully, points out that demands on the dancers have changed, in part, because audiences want to see virtuosos. “As a result,” she says, “training has to be more robust and intense. Beauty of lines has almost become a wistful thing of the past.”

According to Staines, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of training to create a professional classical dancer. She credits Oliphant for being ahead of the curve in taking into account the psychological balance needed for physical balance. “While the actual routine of training is little different from 1959,” she explains, “there is much more awareness of the students’ mental well-being. We focus on life skills, career planning and transition support, particularly in preparing for auditions with target companies. Nutrition and better living are also important, with a concentration on preventing eating disorders. The cafeteria food is certainly a lot better.” Staines regularly brings in consultants like Irene Dowd from New York, a neuromuscular specialist who devises conditioning programs to develop flexibility and strength based on each student’s own distinctive muscle patterning. There is also a host of on call personnel from the mental and physical health fields. Says Stefanschi: “The students are treated like Olympic athletes in terms of support staff.”

Icon Peggy Baker, NBS artist-in-residence, has created a modern dance curriculum specifically geared to ballet students that is a runaway success. (Interestingly, Oliphant admits in her book that she could never find a way of making modern dance classes work at the school.) Baker’s program is part of the NBS goal to produce versatility and diversity, which Staines and her staff see as important commodities in today’s ballet world where choreography covers a broad swath. Rather than teach modern dance through technique exercises, Baker adopted methods used in training actors, where process is a means to the end. Just as theatre classes are based on scene studies, Baker uses miniature choreographies. These etudes, as she calls them, incorporate technique (Graham, Limón, Cunningham and Horton) by combining dynamics, tempo and rhythm. “Modern dance is a very serious and important part of the school,” says Baker, “because it explodes the hierarchy of the ballet class. Students who are weaker in ballet technique can see that they have other gifts. Modern dance explores and expands their ballet technique and teaches them how to manipulate it. It’s also helpful in contemporary ballet choreography where ballet technique is being pushed and pulled. The students see that parallel feet are not a waste of time.” (Of complementary interest are the classes taught by Shaun Amyot that include contemporary repertoire, improvisation technique, and musical theatre.)

According to Staines, Oliphant did not put much stress on training the students to become adults. “It was a program that tended to infantilize the students,” she says. At the NBS of today, students are being encouraged to develop a better sense of their own self and their own voice. The school has an open door policy with all staff members including Staines. Says Bowes: “There is much more dialogue between staff and students and between staff and parents.” And Staines adds: “It’s no longer park your kid at the door and go away.” The Nexus Council, for example, is made up of students, parents, and members of both the artistic and academic staff. It meets on a regular basis to discuss various school issues so that all the stake-holders are involved in the decision-making process. One of Nexus’ achievements is developing the document called “Canada’s National Ballet School: Core Values and Shared Ideals”. All students sign this manifesto which means they undertake to follow its dictums “It is hoped”, says Staines, “that they will carry this code of behaviour into the world at large.” When Tennant looks at Staines’ stewardship, she sees a participatory as opposed to a feudal system. More importantly, the graduates themselves feel that the school over all has prepared them for life, both professionally (able to tackle any repertoire) and personally (a strong sense of discipline and adaptability).

In discussions about academic life with National Ballet dancers who are NBS graduates - Greta Hodgkinson (‘90), Rebecca Rimsay (’90), Xiao Nan Yu (’96), Elena Lobsanova (’04) and Perreira — what comes across is very happy memories of their time there. School, it seems, was fun, although Rimsay calls the academic training “intense”. Says Hodgkinson: “We got a very good education which gave us credits for university. My dad is in education, and he was so concerned about my getting a high school diploma that he wanted me to come to the NBS instead of a school in New York because he liked the idea of full time academic training.” (On the subject of university, NBS graduates include a neurosurgeon.) One thing about the NBS academic wing that first impressed Stefanschi was Oliphant’s emphasis on the arts, a policy which has continued under Staines. All these former students mention courses in photography, art history and music which they loved. For those graduates who were NBS boarders, living in residence meant establishing particularly close friendships and a feeling of family. Nonetheless, long gone are the “colourful characters” as Kain calls the former residence supervisors, and whom Staines refers to as “notorious”. The residence staff are now all professionals with degrees in child care or child psychology.

Thanks to an ambitious $100 million capital expansion project, which was completed in 2007, the NBS has a state-of-the-art dance training facility that embraces both new buildings and renovation of the original NBS complex. Says Bowes: “In the now larger studios, we’re able to do a series of travelling steps in a row instead of just once.” Stefanschi calls the new and improved NBS the finest physical space of any professional dance school in the world. In fact, the architectural firms involved in the expansion have won several international marks of distinctions, including the prestigious Institute Honor Award for Architecture from the American Institute of Architects, making the NBS only the fourth Canadian building to be singled out since the AIA first established the awards in 1949.

Lorna Geddes was a private student of Oliphant’s and a charter member of the National Ballet. She is still with the company as a ballet mistress and sometime character dancer. Geddes has watched 50 years of NBS students. “The school is definitely producing stronger, more flexible and versatile dancers who understand different dance styles,” she says. “They are different kids today as well. They seem more secure. I do worry, however, that the ballet world is pushing students to challenges that are taking a heavy toll on the body.” Kain sees in the NBS a higher level of training that is producing well- rounded, responsible adults. Says Staines: “We are always connected to the beautiful tradition of classical ballet. Nonetheless, we’re not guarding the ashes; we’re stoking the fire because the world is changing all the time.”

Sadly, history is doomed to repeat itself. Staines’ relationship with Oliphant soured after Oliphant’s retirement. Explains Staines: “Betty stayed on as artistic advisor and continued to teach at the school for several years. Unfortunately, problems arose because she had difficulty with not being director any more. It was hard for her to walk away. When I insisted that it had to be a complete break, we did not communicate for over 13 years, although we did have a rapprochement just before she died. Even though she picked me to succeed her, she felt I was taking the school to hell in a hand basket, as she was fond of saying.”

We can’t leave a discussion of the NBS, without Bertram pointing out a certain irony. “Betty was the inspired educator while Celia was the artistic visionary. Yet the new training facility is called The Celia Franca Centre while the performing space is The Betty Oliphant Theatre.”