WHERE FOR ART THOU ROMEO
Barely 30 years old, Guillaume Côté has already built a respectable 12-year career, including his impressive repertoire with the National Ballet of Canada. He’s been a dancer with the company since 2004 and has danced in such perennial favourites as Swan Lake and The Nutcracker — and Côté’s own personal favourite, The Sleeping Beauty (because the Rudolph Nureyev version makes it “more about the man,” he says with a laugh). But perhaps none of them will be able to compare to his next role: Romeo, in November’s world premiere of Romeo and Juliet by acclaimed Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky.
“It's a big deal,” Côté says of the production. “Not only for the city and company, but it’s a very big deal in the international dancing world.”
The new production ties in with the company’s 60th anniversary and is a major coup for the organization, which is replacing its John Cranko’s staging of the ballet for the first time since 1964.
Côté’s excitement for Ratmansky’s new ballet, as well as Ratmansky himself (“he’s been so inspiring to me”) is infectious. So is his passion for dance, which has been a part of his life since he was three years old.
Growing up in northern Quebec, when most boys his age were playing hockey, Côté was dancing ballet. You can blame his parents for his unconventional hobby.
Desiring more culture in their hometown of Lac-Saint-Jean, Côté’s parents decided to open a ballet school. In turn, Côté chuckles, “I grew up thinking doing ballet was quite normal.”
What started as a fun pastime and perhaps a unique way to look after young Guillaume (“I guess there was no money for babysitters,” he jokes) quickly turned into a full-blown passion.
When he was 10, at the beseeching of his teacher, Côté enrolled at the National Ballet School in Toronto. Like most young male ballet dancers of his generation, he looked up to Mikhail Baryshnikov, the “rock star of ballet at that time.” After his five-year tutelage at the school, Côté joined the National Ballet of Canada (where his idol, Baryshnikov, has famously dabbled) when he was 16.
“Dance is incredibly more relevant than anything else, especially now when everything is instant,” Côté says. “It’s completely organic, it’s happening right there. It’s about being there, feeling those emotions, feeling the sweat, feeling everything you’re feeling at that time. It’s so pure, it cannot be impure.” It’s the real time of his performance, being seen live by real people, that satiates Côté’s hunger to dance.
“I love the connection with your partner and the people there watching it at that moment. Without the usage of cameras, like in film, you’ll never be able to see [the performance] again. It can’t be replicated but that’s how it becomes addictive.”
But what about the recent crop of television dance shows that are filmed? “Dance is becoming part of people’s lives because of them. Sometimes the ballet isn’t accessible for everyone, and this way, dance is becoming more mainstream.”
JULIET IS THE SUN
Ballerina Elena Lobsanova should be used to world premieres by now. She has danced in the National Ballet of Canada premieres of Balanchine’s Don Quixote, Chroma and Russian Seasons, as well as the North American premiere of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, to rave reviews — but that doesn’t mean she isn’t nervous when it comes to her next world premiere: dancing the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet.
“I’m very humbled,” says Lobsanova.
“It’s a huge honour. Alexei [Ratmansky, choreographer] is such a brilliant mind. There’s a big pressure, when he’s in the room, but I have lots of respect for him.”
Compounding Lobsanova’s nerves is the fact that her role as Juliet is her “first classical big role,” as she calls it. “At the beginning, I did feel pressure. There’s a lot of people involved with the production. I felt very self-conscious. But now it’s all about the choreography.” Yes, the rigorous choreography can sometimes take hours upon hours to complete just one simple step. However, the gruelling rehearsal process doesn’t seem to affect Lobsanova, who feels she was born to play the female half of the famous star-crossed lovers.
“I feel like her. I feel like I embody her. In some ways, I’ve had six years to become her. I’ve seen [the production] so many times, I’ve read [the play] so many times, and I’ve experienced it in my own way. I feel comfortable with her.” Lobsanova’s favourite dance in the production is the “Interlude,” before Juliet goes to visit the friar. Though she doesn’t want to give too much away, Lobsanova says the dance, features a “mass of dancers,” and is something “you wouldn’t see in a regular production of Romeo and Juliet. It’s quite imaginative and special.”
Lobsanova considers Ratmansky’s production to be a huge opportunity for the National Ballet, especially when they tour with it to London in 2013.
All of this attention is a far cry from the Moscow-born young girl whose first dancing experience came from moving to the music her sister played on the piano in their house in Toronto. Her mother placed her in recreational dance school, and it was there where one of her teachers scouted her and asked her to train professionally.
“I didn’t know dancing could be a professional career,” says Lobsanova. “I never considered the logistics of it.”
If she weren’t a dancer, Lobsanova says anthropology and linguistics are just some of the avenues she’d want to pursue, but when she speaks of dancing, it’s evident that Lobsanova is clearly in the right vocation.
“I love the ability to express something,” she says.
“Ballet has the rare quality of being real. I feel like being onstage is a beautiful and very rare thing. Onstage there is no lie. You can’t mess up, you can’t lie. You have to be completely yourself. There is no editing.”
The National Ballet of Canada’s production of Romeo and Juliet runs from Nov. 16 to 27. For information, go to www.national.ballet.ca.
