Bissonnette's final performance with Les Grands takes place at a gala performance in her honour on June 6, 2007, when she'll perform in Stijn Celis' powerful Noces. The choice of a work for the full company rather than a solo or duet was Bissonnette's with Pankov's blessing. "I want all the dancers to celebrate with me," she says.

"When people ask, 'Are you stopping to dance?' I reply, 'I can't,'" Bissonnette says. "It's not the stage or performing that interests me, it's the means to express myself." Dance for her is not a profession, she adds, but a way of life. In her post-Les Grands years, Bissonnette wants to work more with local choreographers - she'd loved doing a piece with Édouard Lock, for example. There will be more duets choreographed by her life partner, former Les Grands principal dancer Mario Radacovsky, for events like the annual Gala des Étoiles and the cancer benefit show, Coeur en Tête, seen at Centre Pierre-Péladeau in April.

She'll also remain artistic director of the St. Sauveur Arts Festival and as president of the dancers' advocate group, Regroupement québecois de la danse. Unlike earlier days, today she's poised and businesslike at media functions. Recently, she began coaching athletes like Canadian champion figure skater

In 1988, at Malashenko's urging, Bissonnette spent three weeks learning Giselle with the local Ukrainian ballet in Odessa. Unexpectedly, the ballet director invited her to dance the role. As a reward, she was given Giselle's two costumes. Donated to Les Grands, these are now a historic part of the company's wardrobe. Bissonnette later danced two major classical roles at the Opera in Toulouse - Odette/Odile in Swan Lake with Paris Opéra Ballet star Laurent Hillaire and in Beriozov's version of Romeo and Juliet.

In the late 1980s, Bissonnette and Robitaille were

Bissonnette also became an accomplished dancer in the company's George Balanchine repertoire - Allegro Brillante, Four Temperaments, Agon,
Concerto Barocco and others.

Had she joined a Canadian company where classical roles were prominent, like the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Bissonnette might have become Quebec's equivalent of Evelyn Hart, one of Bissonnette's models (Baryshnikov is another).

Outside Les Grands, there were the fabulous duets that she performed at Montreal's Gala des Étoiles almost each year since the mid-1980s - showstoppers like Myriam Naisy's Ederlezi, Vassili Sulich's Mantodea (doffing her familiar lyricism, Bissonnette embodied an aggressive femme fatale) and William Forsythe's Urlicht. "At a Budapest gala, there was a thunderous ovation after Ederlezi," according to gala producer Victor Melnikov. "The audience wouldn't let them go. Anik thought it was for (Bolshoi Ballet stars) Vassiliev and Maximova who were on next. Vassiliev had to physically push them to take a curtain call."

"'Our mission statement says that English National Ballet is the only company that takes the best classical ballet to the regions at affordable prices,' he says. 'We have to make people believe that again.'"

Taking the Lead
Wayne Eagling directs the troubled English National Ballet
By Jeffery Taylor

When Canadian-born Wayne Eagling left behind Dutch National Ballet, which he had successfully directed for 12 years, to take over English National Ballet last September, it appeared, to many observers in the United Kingdom and abroad, to be a very dubious career move

English National Ballet now has a reputation as the Marie Celeste of British dance and once again is in deep crisis. Eagling's predecessor, Matz Skoog, was asked to go quietly; before him, Derek Deane, a hugely inspirational and successful director, walked out in frustration over the board's financial ineptitude. Broadcaster Angela Rippon, a multi-million pound fundraiser for the company, was forced out by rival board members' squalid leaks to tabloids, and for more
than two years men in grey suits from Arts Council England (ACE) have virtually taken over the running of the company, stifling artistic and performance growth in a lopsided search for balanced books.

"We must return to a full performance schedule," insists Eagling, "My first objective is to get money from ACE to halt the perception that English National Ballet is on a downward spiral." Eagling outfaced fierce opposition from the likes of Irek Mukhamedov, Bruce Sansom and Maina Geilgud to land this balletic hot potato. But despite more than a decade at the helm of a leading European dance company, the racy London reputation of the former Royal Ballet principal dancer lingers. The Royal Ballet rabble rouser organized the company's first dancers' strike in 1989. As a gossip column staple, tall, blond and irresistibly photogenic Eagling squired the likes of Isabel Goldsmith and Francesca Thyssen and flaunted his friendship with pop stars Queen and dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Today, at a fit-looking 55, Eagling, a native of Montreal, has never lost his homely twang.

"Our mission statement says that English National Ballet is the only company that takes the best classical ballet to the regions at affordable prices," he says. "We have to make people believe that again. We need to get the publicity right and our big strength is the affordability factor. If you live in, say, Gateshead and you want to take the family to see the Royal Ballet do MacMillan's Manon, it would cost hundreds of pounds to get to Covent Garden and back. I want to take Manon to them." A radical thought, a lease lend arrangement of the Royal's repertoire, one of the greatest in the world. Eagling is enthusiastic." Manon's a popular piece and my dancers could dance it magnificently. The question here," he continues, "'is what's good for British dance, not what is good solely for an individual company?' We can all stay in business, but give the paying public a better deal. "Younger people today," he goes on, "have an appetite for a harder edge, like the currently popular modernist, William Forsythe, but the world is full of little girls who want to grow up to wear tutus who need to see classics like Swan Lake. Recently, there's a flood of visiting ballet companies crowding into the United Kingdom, so we have to make sure it's our Swan Lake the kids come and see - because it's

Eagling is also a prolific and successful choreographer, creating many works in Holland and for other companies worldwide." But," he says, "I've undertaken to hold off choreographing my own work for three years at English National Ballet. Being an artistic director is more than a full-time job; you don't have time for your own life. Choreography will come later."

Eagling has now moved his girlfriend Monique, three parrots and his tropical fish to his house in West London. "We have set up home here," he says, adding, "Unless I get stabbed in the back, my contract is theoretically extendable for 11 years, until I'm 65." Even though his feet have scarcely brushed his new office floor, Eagling already feels at home. "One good feeling about English National Ballet," he remarks, "is that everybody is here in this building in Kensington; the education department is across the corridor, finance is a couple of doors down. In Amsterdam, you had to leave breadcrumbs down when you went looking for anyone." Already there's a warm feeling about this place for me." <end>