During a frenetic 10 days of classes, coaching
sessions, scrutinized performances and varied social events, Toronto
this summer became the first city in the Americas and only the fourth
internationally to host the world's oldest dance-off, the Genée
International Ballet Competition.
Global
Dance-off
The Genée
International Ballet Competition's first stop in the Americas was
in Toronto this summer. By
Michael Crabb
Fifty-three
rising talents, ranging in age from 14 to 19 and hailing from 12 countries
on four continents, gathered in Toronto on August 14 and settled into
the National Ballet School's new student residence on Maitland Street
as they prepared to vie for medals and cash awards totalling $23,000
in the London-based Royal Academy of Dance's flagship annual event.
The National Ballet School's bright, airy studios
and the generous stage of its Betty Oliphant Theatre provided the
venues for the preparatory week and semi-final round. Apart from
classes and coaching sessions, during the first week all entrants
were obliged to learn a new contemporary ballet solo -- one for
the women and another for the men -- created by Canadian choreographer
Sabrina Matthews.
The August 20 and 21 semi-finals
included a judged classical class followed by performances to
live piano accompaniment of Matthews' solo and each competitor's
choice of a 19th-century classical variation, selected from
a prescribed list. By the semi-finals, two entrants had already
been forced to withdraw, owing to injury. And of the 51 left
standing, only 16 were selected to move on to the August 23
final round, held at the Canadian Opera Company's 2,000-seat
Four Seasons Centre. There, in addition to the contemporary
and 19th-century solos, they were required to perform a 20th-century
classical repertoire variation from another tightly prescribed
list -- Ashton
and MacMillan only. (One longed for a dash
of Balanchine or Robbins!)
Unlike the concurrent Beijing Olympics, where
gold medals were going to whoever swam the fastest, jumped the highest
or scored the most points, Genée competitors with their dreams
set on gold had a higher hurdle to vault. Competition rules set
the gold bar very high and keep it there. If no one surmounts it,
even the best in a Genée competition will have to settle
for silver or bronze. In its first two years, 1931 and 1932, there
was only one medal available -- a gold. But in 17 of the 75 subsequent
contests in which graded medals have been handed out, the judges
have chosen not to award gold. In 2005, Céline Gittens, now
in the corps of Britain's Birmingham Royal Ballet, became the first
and, so far, only Canadian to win Genée gold; although 1988
silver medalist, National Ballet of Canada star Chan Hon Goh, came
close. Both trained at her parent's Goh Ballet Academy in Vancouver,
a school with an impressive history of producing Genée medalists,
including this year's co-silver winning competitor -- and at age
14 its youngest -- Nicole Ciapponi of Surrey, British Columbia.
Before studying under Lynnette
Kelley at the Goh Academy a year ago, Ciapponi trained closer
to home at Heather McBride's School of Dancing in Surrey. Among
the females, Ciapponi was an audience favourite from the start.
Her joyful stage presence and assurance belied her youth and
the way Ciapponi put a personal stamp on Matthews' Mozart-driven
solo monas revealed a true artist in the making. Not surprisingly,
Matthews chose Ciapponi to win a new special award, the $1,000
Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Award for Theatricality.
Canadian co-bronze medalist Alexandra Bertram, 19, says
she was primarily a jazz dancer until four years ago. She studied
in hometown Calgary at Umran Sumen's International School of
Ballet and also at the Boston Ballet School. "I came to
the Genée for the experience," says Bertram, "never
thinking I'd win a medal. Whenever else am I going to perform
three solos on that opera house stage?" Or, for that matter,
as another competitor pointed out, have one's talent assessed
objectively by judges who have reached the pinnacle of their
careers.
Objectivity, so far as it can exist in measuring an art form,
is strictly observed in the Genée competition. Until
it's all over, the judges know the entrants only by their assigned
number. They are not provided with details about their ages,
nationalities or teachers. According to Joffrey Ballet Artistic
Director Ashley Wheater, he and his fellow judges were even
urged to avoid reading or watching any media coverage of the
event, which given its extensiveness in 2008, including a preview
item on CBC TV's The National, must have been quite a challenge.
The Genée jury is routinely headed by Dame Antoinette
Sibley who, in succeeding Dame Margot Fonteyn in 1991, became
the Royal Academy of Dance's third president. In terms of maintaining
standards, Sibley provides valuable continuity from year to
year,
while the other judges can provide their
own perspectives. In an interesting twist, the Genée replaces
one of the semi-final round judges for the culminating event. This
year, Rex Harrington yielded his place to Karen Kain at the finals.
"It brings a completely fresh eye to the final round," explains
Sibley. With her long perspective, Sibley says potential gold medalists
tend to assert themselves early on. "Someone truly exceptional
just rises to the top. It's the next category that is often the challenge
to decide," she explains.
In the international circuit of ballet competitions
the Genée, apart from the rigour of its judging process,
is particular. It is not an open competition and is exclusively
reserved for pre-professional dancers. By virtue of its historic
roots and continuing
purpose, the Genée has always been a Royal Academy of Dance
affair, providing an ultimate challenge for students who have studied
its syllabus. Only those who have passed the vocational Advanced
2 exam in classical ballet with distinction or attained the ultimate
Solo Seal are eligible to enter. The competition honours the name
of legendary Danish-born dancer Adeline Genée. In 1920, she
formed part of a distinguished group that was determined to improve
the standard of dancing in Britain, leading to the founding of the
Association of Operatic Dancing. Key to its ambition was the creation
of a widely subscribed, graded training syllabus. The fledgling
organization quickly established its credibility and won royal patronage.
From its London base, the renamed Royal Academy of Dance's influence
on training spread throughout the Empire-Commonwealth: "wherever
the map used to be coloured pink," as Luke Rittner, the academy's
chief executive for the past nine years, aptly describes it.
Although often thought of, and not always positively,
as representative of the "English" school of ballet, growing
appreciation for the effectiveness of the Royal Academy's training
regime, now divided into examination streams geared toward both
amateurs and pre-professionals, slowly enhanced its international
reputation. Nowadays, although its penetration into the United States
is limited -- the head of a distinguished Florida conservatory told
me he'd never heard of the Genée -- many
students in Europe, Asia, and Central and South America also study
its syllabi. The Royal Academy of Dance has an almost 13,000 global
membership and most recently reported figures show that worldwide
almost 225,000 students take one of its
exams annually.
As its flagship event, the Genée has
evolved throughout its history. Says Lynn Wallace, the academy's
artistic director since 1994 and former co-artistic director of
the National Ballet of Canada: "We are continually looking
for ways to improve it." In recent years these have included
adding a commissioned solo and a 20th-century classical variation.
According to Rittner, he and Wallace both recognized
the value of breaking with tradition by taking the Genée
offshore. The initiative had both practical and strategic objectives.
The competition was growing tired and, as Rittner describes it,
"needed an injection." The Royal Academy of Dance also
needed to project the fact that it is an international organization.
Its continued healthy existence in a competitive environment --
and it has faced some daunting financial challenges in the past
few years -- necessitates a more aggressive approach to marketing
its brand. The Royal Academy of Dance is a venerable institution
with high ideals and standards to match but it is not alone in the
field of internationally standardized ballet training. Judging by
the impact of convening the 2008 Genée in Toronto, the Royal
Academy of Dance's increasing focus beyond England is a fruitful
strategy for maintaining the organization's vitality. <end>
Antoinette
Sibley, as any self-respecting ballet fan knows, was one of
the finest ballerinas Britain has ever produced. For almost
three decades, she was among the Royal Ballet's most prized
jewels. With Anthony Dowell, Sibley formed one of the 20th-century's
most internationally celebrated and artistically exalted partnerships.
WEB
EXCLUSIVE: The Antoinette Sibley Connection By Michael Crabb
Remarkably, re-emerging
from injury and childbirth, she managed to extend her career
with effectively two comebacks, continuing to appear with
the Royal Ballet in select roles until 1989. Today, at a youthful-looking
69, Sibley remains a
glamorous figure. An aristocratic aura of stardom still clings
to her although in person Sibley is warm, friendly and down-to-earth
-- anything but a diva. Her presence alone doubtless helped
draw media attention to the Genée and was certainly
a delight for the competitors and local balletomanes.
Even those who never had the good fortune
to see Sibley dance live onstage will likely remember her
as Sevilla Haslam in Herbert Ross' iconic 1977 backstage-at-the-ballet
drama, The Turning Point, the on-screen partner to Mikhail
Baryshnikov's "randy Russian," Yuri Kopeikine. Fans
of the movie had a special treat when the famous movie was
screened in Sibley's presence on August 22. Better still was
all the insider information about its making that followed
during
Sibley's onstage conversation with Canadian former ballerina
Veronica Tennant, who, as the Great Dame was gracious enough
to point out, had also been partnered by Anthony Dowell during
his appearances as a National Ballet of Canada guest artist.
That night's screening, as Sibley revealed,
was the first time she had seen The Turning Point in its entirety.
Re-experiencing the trauma of dancing her way through it with
a seriously inflamed knee had previously been a disincentive,
but at a distance of more than 30 years Sibley was able to
chuckle at the experience. She could have easily held her
audience late into
the night with tales from the ballet world and her personal
life: meeting pre-defection Baryshnikov for the first time
in a dingy London hotel room during a Kirov Ballet tour to
London, being rescued from a rip-tide in Malibu by Rock Hudson,
talking the night away at a Hollywood party with a fascinating
gentlemen she later discovered was Fred Astaire and checking
out Los Angeles real estate with Warren Beatty. Among Sibley's
most intriguing revelations was her almost-move to Canada
during the Second World War. She and her mother were all set
to seek refuge from war-ravaged Britain, but the ship caught
fire before they embarked and Sibley remained in her homeland.
Just think what might have been; or, then, not been.
As a Sadler's Wells Ballet School student
-- Ninette de Valois' company and school did not go "Royal"
until after Sibley joined it in 1956 -- she never studied
the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus nor, apart from winning
a tap contest at age six on a Brighton pier, ever took part
in a dance competition. Sibley is even willing to admit that
in principle she has reservations about the value of competitions,
but is more than happy to lend her prestige and involvement
to the Genée since it is intrinsic to the culture of
the academy and is positioned deliberately not as a springboard
to fame but as an enriching educational experience for young
dancers.
"Working with our teachers and coaches,"
says Sibley, "learning new choreography and being able
to meet and compare themselves with other dancers from around
the world is a fantastic experience. And the spirit of the
Genée competition is always very friendly and supportive."
<end>
"'I
had to look down and check my number to be sure I'd
won.'" -- Aaron Smyth
Genée
Golden Boy: Aaron Smyth By
Michael Crabb
The
competitors, with identifying numbers still pinned to their
costumes, stood onstage at the end of the Genée's final
round as Royal Academy of Dance chief executive Luke Rittner
announced who would be taking home a medal. He did so by
number, starting with the women; no gold there. Then the boys;
two silvers. The familiar smile that 17-year-old Australian
finalist Aaron Smyth had been bravely wearing thus far showed
a faint quiver of anxiety. Was he going to leave empty-handed?
Rittner, in the academy's version of
slow torture, launched into a preamble to explain how a gold
medal, if awarded at all, is only given to dancers of truly
exceptional accomplishment, and, yes, this year the judges
had decided one such dancer merited a gold: "Number 16."
The audience, who it was soon revealed
had already voted Smyth their favourite dancer, roared with
approval, but for a moment the golden boy seemed stunned.
"I had to look down and check my number to be sure I'd
won," Smyth recalls.
And not just a medal, but also $11,000
in prize money, funds that will help defray the considerable
costs of his further education. From Toronto, Aaron Smyth
headed straight for New York to begin full-time studies at
American Ballet
Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.
Despite the shelf of competition trophies
proudly displayed in his Gold Coast, Queensland, home, Smyth
has had his share of disappointments. Last April, at the Youth
America Grand Prix in New York -- an eight-year-old, annual,
international
ballet competition of growing prestige for dancers aged 19
and under -- Smyth did not even make the senior men's "Top
12" list. Then, two months later, Smyth came oh-so-close
-- one of four finalists -- but not close enough to a $250,000
prize in the nationally televised Australia's Got Talent reality
show. Smyth's dazzling routines are still viewable on YouTube.
Aaron Smyth in Australia's Got Talent
2008 Grand Final. (Source: YouTube.com)
Still, soon after that disappointment,
Smyth passed his Royal Academy of Dance Solo Seal and now,
with his Genée gold, has gone as high competitively
as it's possible to go within the Academy's universe.
At almost 5 feet, 11 inches, and
with good proportions and handsome looks, Smyth cuts a virile,
dashing figure onstage. It's a place where he seems very much
at home. Some might fault a certain lack of refinement in
his classical line and there are details, such as hands, that
need attention, but overall, at 17, Smyth shows the potential
to become an impressive
dancer. And Smyth's future?
Although many former Genée winners have progressed
to dazzling professional careers, a medal is not a guarantee,
only an indicator.
Smyth says joining American Ballet
Theatre has always been his dream. It has the kind of repertoire
he wants to dance. He frankly admits that his attending American
Ballet Theatre's school will increase his chances of being
hired into the company. It's a goal shared by many other talented
young dancers, but the competition is very tough. Competition,
however, is something Smyth is more than used to, and if what
his Australian teachers say holds true, it will merely spur
him to work that much harder. <end>
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal in Paris
by Victor Swoboda
Deborah Hay's Songs of Stillness
by Selma Odom
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