After 26 years, National Ballet of Canada Principal Dancer Guillaume Côté will mark his final performances with the company May 30 to June 5. The program, appropriately is titled Adieu, and opens the NBC’s Summer Season with an all-Canadian lineup of works, including Côté’s new work Grand Mirage, along with the reprisal of his Boléro, and world premieres from Choreographic Associate Ethan Colangelo and dancemaker Jennifer Archibald.
“It’s overwhelming how much beauty and passion there is in my heart for what the National Ballet has given me – a family and a life that has shaped who I am and is something that I will carry forever,” said Côté in a statement.
“For my final performances, I wanted to work with a very close collaborator, film director Ben Shirinian for Grand Mirage. Ben and I have worked on many films together including Lost in Motion and Lulu and I thought it would be very special to ask Ben to create a film element as I say farewell.”
Created with Canadian filmmaker Ben Shirinian, the multimedia work Grand Mirage showcases Côté’s work as both dancer and choreographer, and reunites him with long-time partner, former Principal Dancer Greta Hodgkinson, who will appear as a Principal Guest Artist.
Guillaume’s Boléro was created for the National Ballet’s 60th Anniversary Diamond Gala in 2012.
A native of Toronto, Ethan Colangelo trained with Canada’s National Ballet School and Elite Danceworx. He is graduate of The Juilliard School, where he received the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreographic Promise.
His first full company mainstage commission, titled Reverence, will make its world premiere. The piece is inspired by the Hieronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights, and explores the way that contrasting emotions, denoted by moments of virtuosity juxtaposed with more subtle movements and music, can exist in the body at the same time. The original score was composed by Ethan’s frequent collaborator Ben Waters.
Jennifer Archibald was born in Toronto, and went on to study dance at The Alvin Ailey School and the Maggie Flanigan Acting Conservatory. She is the founder and Artistic Director of the Arch Dance Company and Program Director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives.
Her first choreographic collaboration with NBC incorporates her signature blend of hip-hop with classical ballet and contemporary movement. Archibald has choreographed for dance and ballet companies, off-Broadway musicals, and chart-topping singers like Ludacris and Shaggy, along with working as a movement specialist and consultant for actors and movie projects, as well as industrials for companies like Nike and Reebok.
Jennifer has choreographed for the Atlanta Ballet, Ailey II, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Memphis, Kansas City Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Ballet Nashville, Grand Rapids Ballet, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, and Stockholm’s Balletakademien, and Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre. She was appointed as the first female Resident Choreographer in Cincinnati Ballet’s 40-year history.
Jennifer is an Acting Lecturer at the Yale School of Drama and was appointed as a Guest Faculty Lecturer to develop the hip hop dance curriculum at Barnard College.
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