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Dance in Canada Magazine No 41 Fall 1984

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Dance in Canada Magazine No 41 Fall 1984 oupe vi ent de terminer une o mee a ·tre " d' ambassadeurs e s canadiens" en Asie. s o s offrons I' occasion de a compagnie a son meilleur, e s perproduction de la oa se professionnelle qui sait fa e reconnaTtre la danse ca a ienne a travers le monde. e Company has recently eted a tour as"Canadia al Ambassadors" to the Far East. This is an opportunity see the Company in top form, t s are the excitement of s ec acular dance that is "buting to world-wide a reciation for all Canadian dance. OTTAWA Centre National des Arts/ National Arts Centre les 1, 2, 3 novembre/ November MONTREAL Place des Arts les 8, 9, 10 novembre/ November GISELLE ACTEII ACTII d'a pres/ after Perrot et Coralli/Anton Dolin Musique/ Music: Adolphe Adam {Ottawa-Premiere) ALLIANCES* James Kudelka/Johannes Brahms TORONTO O' Keefe Centre les 29, 30 novembre/November le 1 decembre/ December CAPRICCIO George Balanchine/Igor Stravinsky ALLIANCES* James Kudelka/ Johannes Brahms BAL DES CADETS David Lichine/Johann Strauss 1,2,3 novembre/ November­ • Ottawa & Toronto - Premiere !. B. M . CANADA Programme sujet a changement MONTREAL, Program subject to change Commanditaires/ 8,9, 10 novembre/ November Sponsors CENTRE SHERATON MONTREAL Published quarterly by the Dance in Canada Association. Issue Number 41 Fall 1984 Automne Steve Dymond COVER STORY: Executive Director 4 Celebration: The National Ballet School Susan Hilary Cohen Marks Its 25th Anniversary Founding Editor William Littler Sandra Evan-Jones 11 Bringing Professionalism to Street Theatre: Editor Festival Characters of Vancouver Paula Citron Robert Donald Art Director 19 Jeanne Robinson: A Passion for Dance Jack Cunningham Pamela Anthony Advertising Representative 27 Dance at the National Arts Centre: Patty Margolese Circulation Manager New Ambitions, New Directions Hilary McLaughlin The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily re­ flect those of the Dance in Canada A ssociation. 34 Dance in Saskatchewan: © Copyright by the Dance in Canada Association. All Moving Forward into the Spotlight rights reserved. Diane Sather and Cathy Bond-Tabb Unsolicited manuscripts should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. While the publishers will take all reasonable care, Dance in Canada will not be respons ible for loss or damage to unsolicited materials. 36 Books in Review Address all correspondence to Dance in Canada, 38 Charles Leland Windreich Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4Y 1 Tl. (416) 921- 5169. Second class mail registration number 03874. Return postage 39 n.b. What's new and what's happening guaranteed. ISSN 0317-9737. people, performances and exhibits The publication of Dance in Canada is made possible, in part, with the assistance of the Government of Canada, through the D epartment of Communications and the Canada 46 Dance at a Glance Co,mci/, and the Government of Ontario, through the Min­ istry of Citizenship and Culture. Les opinions exprimies dans ce magazine ne refldent pas necessairement celles de !'Association Danse au Canada. Copyright © Association Danse au Canada. Taus droits reserves. Les mamucrits non sollicitis doi vent etre accompagnis d'une enveloppe affranchie et adressie a l'envoyeur. Les directeurs de la publication apporteront tout le so in necessaire aux docu­ ments nQn sollicitis, mais diclinent toute responsab iliti en cas de perte ou de dommages. T oute correspondance doit etre adressie Cl la ridaction, Danse au Canada, 38 Charles Street East, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1T1. (4 16) 921-5169. Numero d'enregistre111ent de courier de seconde c!asse: 03874. Frais de retour garantis. COVER: Betty Oliphant, founder of the National ISSN 0317-9737. Dansc au Canada est pub/ii en partie grace a !'assistance du Ballet School, and students Dominique Dumais, ministere des Communications du Goiwernement du Ca­ Jennifer Fournier and Caroline Richardson. nada, du Canseil des Arts du Canada et du ministere des Af faires civiques et culturelles de /'Ontario. Photograph by Joseph Ciancio. 4 Celebration The National Ballet School Marks Its 25th Anniversary by William Littler here was a warehouse building on Dupont worth For that was the address of the school she ran before there was considering, and an old men's home on Seaton that such a thing as the National Ballet of Canada, and the schoo T might do in a pinch, but when Elsie Agnew and she continued to run until closing its doors to become the fi r c Mildred Wickson set eyes on that Q uaker meeting house, the principal of the company's school. one with the columned portico on Maitland Street, they It was the company's school at first, at least in the eyes o · knew they had found what they were looking for. It needed Celia Franca and her supporters. As soon as she crossed Can­ work. The raked floor would have to go, likewise some of ada to recruit the dancers who would become the Nationa. the walls. But Celia Franca, Betty Oliphant and just about ev­ Ballet's charter members, Franca reali zed, as she later wrote. eryone else agreed: this was going to be the school. that "if the National Ballet was to become a permanent insti­ That was all of25 years ago, but the Quaker meeting house tution we would have to establish a residential school in at 111 Maitland Street in downtown Toronto is still the home which we could house talented young students and also pro­ of the National Ballet School and, if its present occupants vide them with a well-rounded academic and artistic educa­ have anything to say in the matter, it probably will continue tion. Only in this way could the continuity of the com pan: to be so for many years to come. be ensured and only in this way could it rely on its ne" If, as the late Polly Adler once put it, a house is not a home, members having an adequate and standard training." neither is a meeting house a school. It all depends on what Those charter members of the National Ballet had nothin; goes on inside. All the same, something about the setting, approaching a standard training. Some had almost no balle: even in its de-consecrated state, seemed to bless the enterprise training at all. What a contrast to the situation today, w h . about to take place beneath its roof. two-thirds of the company can look back on their years ir Better make that roofs. For, over the succeeding years, the green blazers, under the tutelage of Miss O. Most of the co .. - house on Maitland Street exhibited a Topsy-like propensity pany's biggest stars, dancers such as Frank Augustyn, to grow, gathering unto itself adjoining and neighbouring essa Harwood, Karen Kain, Nadia Potts, Kevin Pugh a . .: houses and eventuall y, courtesy of the architectural firm of Veronica Tennant, owe their formative training to the teac· - Armstrong and Molesworth, achieving a remarkable integra­ ers on Maitland Street. tion of residential space, classrooms and studios, connected Among the 284 students who survived the high drop-o by subterranean passageways which, if they hadn't come rate to graduate, 181 may have become professional dance, along so late in time, might have been accused of giving birth but by no means all of them wound up rehearsing at · to the nickname by which ballet beginners are identified at the Lawrence Hall. Some went to other Canadian compani Paris Opera-petits rats. whether Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Royal Winni - O n one level the story of the National Ballet School could Ballet or Anna Wyman Dance Theatre; some travelled sou:. almost be called a tale of real estate. There has always been a of the border to American Ballet Theatre, the Martha G- - space problem and the buying and selling of houses by Betty ham company and the Metropolitan Opera; still others ha• O liphant and her eagle-eyed board has marked the stages in taken up European residence, with the Royal Danish BaU · the School's growth. the Stuttgart Ballet or the Dutch National Ballet. It might even be argued that Betty Oliphant bought the For, like the National Theatre School, the National B " - first house herself and that it stood at 444 Sherboume Street. School has become a cosmopolitan institution. More than - 1 Dance in Canada Fall l - 5 Eugen Valukin (shown here with Kristina Sealander) has been a gues t teacher at the National Ballet School on several occasions. William Stolar, David Nixon and Kevin Pugh with teacher D aniel Seill ier. Dance in Can ada Fall 1984 6 Sabina Allcmann of the National Ballet of Canada and Jeffrey Kirk of the Hamburg Ballet in the pas de deux from Don Quixote , staged by Eugen Valukin. Both dancers are graduates of the National Ballet School. students audition for admittance each year, from coast to Hart, ballet master of the Royal Ballet, and Igor Belsky of th coast, and all 10 provinces are represented on its class lists. Its Kirov Ballet both extended invitations to the girls to go on t alumni consider the world their oyster and the world has been their schools after finishing the National Ballet's course. "N more than ready to accept them. dilettantism," said Belsky. "Very professional." A couple o;­ Perhaps there is no better illustration of this last point than years later, more Russian visitors expressed similar com­ the events ofJune 1981, when a group of graduates and senior ments, with Leonid Lavrovsky of the Bolshoi Ballet declarin; students flew to Moscow and walked away with more the National Ballet School the best he had encountered ir medals and prizes than the competitors of any other nation­ North America.
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