By Michael Crabb It’s mid-October, almost six weeks until the premiere of the National Ballet of Canada’s two-million-dollar aspiring blockbuster, MADDADDAM, and much remains to be done. “There were four weeks I was really making material,” says the acclaimed British choreographer Wayne McGregor. “I was trying to invent, to get stuff out of my head,
By Michael Crabb The last time the National Ballet of Canada unveiled a new Swan Lake, in May 1999, it bore the unmistakably dystopian thumbprint of then artistic director James Kudelka, and was played out against the backdrop of a public scandal. The previous December, principal dancer Kimberly Glasco had sideswiped the Toronto-based company by
by Philip Szporer You know you’ve “made it” in Quebec when you’re invited to be a guest on the entertaining Radio-Canada talk show, Tout le monde en parle. It’s Sunday mass for the masses, without the religion. More than a million viewers can’t be wrong. Last March, dancer-choreographer Guillaume Côté, one of Canada’s biggest ballet