Leaping back East

CONSIDERING THAT the National Ballet of Canada hasn't been to Halifax in 12 years, Karen Kain is surprised tickets aren't selling more briskly.

"It makes me very sad," says the company's former star ballerina and now artistic associate. "We've gone to such effort to make this happen. I've been working on it for a year and a half."

She has done a lot of the fundraising to make the Atlantic tour of 12 principal dancers possible and has also worked with the dancers to rehearse two of three pieces in Monday night's program.

"It's going to be a stunning program," says Kain, "and you will see some of the best dancers in our company."

Kain is rehearsing Balanchine's 1928 Appollo, set to Stravinsky, and Eliot Feld's Intermezzo "and they are two ballets I absolutley adore."

The Balanchine is "probably one of the best ballets ever choreographed," says Kain. "It looks amazingly contemporary to my eye. The simplicity and beauty are quite extraordinary."

Dancer Sonia Rodriguez describes American choreographer Eliot Feld's 1969 Intermezzo, a romantic work about three couples with piano music by Brahms, as being a like snow ball.

"It's a very intimate piece. It's like those little balls you shake and you watch, it's like a precious little thing and you look at it and the audiences really enjoy it."

Rodriguez, who joined the company as a 17-year-old from Spain in 1990, was keen to audition for Feld and get into the piece as part of "Couple No. One."

"Karen had sold it quite nicely to us. She told us Eliot would be somebody that probably would not be easy to work with but would bring the best out of us."

Rodriguez, who was cast as Juliet this past season, has never performed in Atlantic Canada. But she has been to Halifax with her husband, world champion figure skater Kurt Browning.

"I think it'll be exciting for people in Halifax to have us back and for us because it's a part of the country people love and it's special for me. I love the East."

Her husband is ironically out West; he spends five months of the year touring with Stars on Ice.

Rodriguez was born in Toronto, but grew up in Madrid and studied at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid and at Princess Grace Academy in Monaco. In 1989 she won an international competition in Capri. Betty Oliphant, director of the National Ballet of Canada School, and head of the contest's jury, told her the National would be interested in her.

Rodriguez's life changed quickly. She met Kurt Browning before she turned 18 when the National was on a Western tour and the Royal Glenora Club in Edmonton, Browning's skating club, was holding a reception for the dancers. Rodriguez wasn't invited but decided she wanted to go; Browning was invited but didn't want to go. He ended up being dragged to the podium to make a welcoming speech.

"He hadn't a clue who we were."

After talking to him, though, he drove to the company's next stop in Calgary, the next stop, where his brother lives and "we got tickets for him and his brother," says Rodriguez. "I must have made an impression."

In 1995 Browning proposed to her from centre ice at Maple Leaf Gardens. The couple has been together for 12 years, and copes with the separation entailed by their careers.

"It's something you have to accept. It's a choice you make. Our careers are not very long and we love and treasure them very much. The time to do it is now. Whenever there is a little break we're travelling back and forth."

Like Karen Kain, she wishes the company could travel more. "We'd like to go out there more and be seen."

When Kain was dancing with the National she travelled internationally and nationally.

"I spent my whole career, one year going East, the other year going West, it was part of what we wanted to do as a national company but then things were cut." (The touring office of the Canada Council cut money for touring.)

"It's very sad. I wish it were different. I think we should be seen everywhere; we should be on a world stage, it's important for the dancers to have international careers, it's important for the country."

Kain retired as a dancer five years ago and has totally adjusted to the change. She doesn't take class. "I do a little bit of yoga by myself and exercises."

As associate director, a lot of her job is fundraising. When she gets a chance to coach dancers, it's a treat.

"It's my absolute most favourite thing to work with the dancers."

A staunch supporter of the National Ballet's artistic director James Kudelka's during the Kimberly Glasco crisis, Kain feels the company is in a good position artistically with Kudelka.

"For the first time in our history (we have) a well-respected choreographer as artistic director creating work for the company. It gives the company a unique voice. We have our own repertoire unique to us."

But the struggle for finding is difficult, she says.

This tour has only been possible through the generosity of corporations and individuals including the McCains in New Brunswick and David and Margaret Fountain in Nova Scotia.

Kain will be coming to Halifax to see the company perform for its first show on Monday.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing it in a more intimate setting," she said. "I have a personal friendship with the Fountains and I want to see them and I want to see the company back in Halifax.

"I'm delighted the tour is happening. I hope people will come out and see us."