Over the course of a few weeks in May and June, I choreographed the dance sequences for Nureyev, a film about the dance legend, which was written, directed and produced by Moze Mossanen. Moze and I previously worked together on his Year of the Lion in 2003 and I was so happy that he asked me to collaborate once more with him on this film.

One of the great things about choreographing for film is being able to meet and work with dancers who come from a variety of backgrounds. In this instance, beyond members of the local ballet, modern and musical theatre communities, most notable was Nico Archambault, winner of So You Think You Can Dance Canada, coming on board to play the role of Nureyev. Joining him in principal roles were National Ballet Principal Dancer Greta Hodgkinson as Margot Fonteyn and First Soloist Etienne Lavigne as Erik Bruhn.

Many eyebrows were raised at the thought of Nico taking on this part, but there is a reason he won the competition: he’s a talented dancer, very quick to learn and has an uncanny ability to assimilate corrections in the moment. He’s also a natural partner. He and Greta worked to put their duets together quite easily. Because the film focuses on Nureyev’s life both onstage and offstage, I was able to explore other movement vocabularies in the different scenes.

I don’t often work in film and I was reminded of what an exhilarating but also challenging medium it is to work in. Whereas in a ballet company situation, one might rehearse for weeks and months on a production and then enjoy a run of one or many weeks, with film the rehearsal process is quite compressed and a lot of the tailoring of movement and drama is done on set. Instead of allowing a performance to mature over the course of days and weeks, with film it happens in a matter of hours as sequences are repeated time and time again. It’s amazing to see things evolve so quickly, but it involves a lot of mental and physical stamina from the dancers.

[Photos: Top, Rudolph Nureyev with Erik Bruhn (left) in rehearsal. Photo by Pete Ward. Centre, Matjash Mrozewski. Photo by Julian Kingma. Above, Greta Hodgkinson in class and Etienne Lavigne. Photos by Sian Richards.]

Ever since The National Ballet of Canada burst onto the international dance scene, its dancers have been featured on the cover of numerous dance and lifestyle magazines. More than anyone else in the company’s long history, these covers have featured Karen Kain, capturing her career at every stage.

This September, after 36 years, Karen Kain once again appears on the cover of Chatelaine, sharing her experience as Artistic Director and reflecting on the dancer she was when she was featured on the cover in 1973. At that point, just a few years out of school, she had just danced with Ruldoph Nureyev in The Sleeping Beauty for the first time. Holding special meaning for Karen Kain and the entire company, The Sleeping Beauty will be performed again this November in the opulent re-staging. It will open the 2009/10 Season which includes beloved classics Swan Lake and a newly designed Onegin, as well as world premieres by Aszure Barton and Jorma Elo.

“I’m trying to find a balance that lets the company perform the old works, the Romeo and Juliets, and lets young people know that ballet is not just for old fogeys” she explains.

What is her advice to Chatelaine readers and regular Canadian women? To avoid the critical perception she once had of herself and enjoy what they have.

The first time a choreographer sees their work take its first few breaths of life on stage is a very fulfilling almost surreal experience. Both creator and dancer feel the familiar apprehension, but they are in totally different stages of the creative process. When a dancer first takes on a new work, it has been given to them to do with what they will; it now belongs to them. The choreographer on the other hand, has spent hours in the studio, tinkering with and perfecting their vision until it represents their own ideas, but when the house lights dim, they relinquish control over what they have created. It is now in the hands of the artists on the other side of proscenium.

Be Happy Again, which I created for the company’s “Choreographic Explorations” series last winter started with a piece of music, as most of my work tends to do. I took this energetic remix of a Louis Armstrong song and just thought “let’s do something that will be fun to dance!”. Fellow Apprentices Nikki Holck and Thomas Snee and I created a very fast (and fiendishly difficult!) three and a half minute pas de deux that I hope is fun to dance!

In terms of creating the actual steps, most contemporary choreographers try to transcend the idea of “named steps” from the ballet vocabulary. Even once you have come up with something that you feel is new and original, it can be a challenge to communicate your ideas to the dancers you are working with. This is something I am still learning how to do effectively as a young choreographer and the younger dancers are learning to adapt their technique and their bodies to new and sometimes uncomfortable or awkward movements.

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have my work shown along side pieces by Guillaume Côté and Matjash Mrozewski and to be able to participate in the post performance discussion.

[Photos: Top, Ian Parsons and Sarah Wolff in the YOU dance performance of The Man I Love. Photo by Bruce Zinger. Centre, National Ballet Apprentices in a YOU dance piece choreographed by Ian Parsons. Photo by Bruce Zinger.]

This is my fifth year teaching the “Creating Dances” summer camp at the National Ballet and I’m finding that leading a large room full of children is becoming a bit less intimidating. My first few years of doing this project, I found myself more nervous than I had ever been before a dance performance. Having thirty pairs of eyes watching you and waiting for you to motivate them with your words and movement really forces you to be your most authentic self. However, the reward of seeing children absorb what you teach them and make discoveries about what they’re capable of makes the effort more than worthwhile.

This year, my group chose “outer space” as the theme of their end of camp show, which made me happy as there are many things to draw danceable inspiration from in deep space: planets, shooting stars and, of course, a dance-off between robots and aliens.

After two weeks of spending so much time with these kids, I often find myself feeling quite attached to them and miss them terribly when the camp is done.

[Photos: Alejandra Perez-Gomez with participants in the Creating Dances Summer Camp.]