NAC Dance with Cathy Levy – Details, episodes & analysis

In this special podcast episode, Annabelle Cloutier, Executive Director of Strategy and Communications at Canada’s National Arts Centre, chats with Cathy Levy about her career at the NAC as Executive Producer of Dance. Over the course of her 22.5 years with the institution, she programmed 23 amazing seasons highlighting the depth and breadth of the world of dance. Cathy reflects on her love of the art form, the Canadian and international dance companies and artists that graced the NAC stages, the privilege of working for the National Arts Centre, the people who inspired her, and the role of the NAC as a leader in the field and a place of experimentation and learning.

This episode of NAC Dance with Cathy Levy features a fascinating conversation with Wen Wei Wang, Artistic Director of Ballet Edmonton, choreographer, and NAC Associate Dance Artist. Born and raised in Xi’an, China, Wen Wei dedicated his life to dance at a very early age upon seeing the famous Chinese ballet The White-Haired Girl. He trained at the Langzhou Army School and the prestigious People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art. A five-month cultural exchange in Vancouver led him to return for good a few years later with the help and support of his mentor and friend Grant Strate. The following decades saw him perform with Judith Marcuse Dance Company, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Ballet BC; create his own company Wen Wei Dance; and accept the artistic leadership of Ballet Edmonton.

In this podcast interview, the incomparable Louise Lecavalier chats with Cathy about her initial encounter with dance, the guidance she received as a novice, and how Edouard Lock came to invite her to join La La La Human Steps where she performed for 18 years, revolutionizing dance and doing guest appearances with superstars David Bowie and Frank Zappa in the process. In 1999, she parts with the company to seek pleasure in new beginnings and embarks on a career interpreting works by Tedd Robinson, Benoît Lachambre, Crystal Pite and Nigel Charnock, amongst others. In conclusion, Louise tells us about creating her own choreographic works starting with So Blue in 2012 followed by Mille batailles/Battleground and Stations.

The sublime Principal Dancer Greta Hodgkinson spoke with Cathy Levy in December 2019 on the eve of her retirement from The National Ballet of Canada following an extraordinary 30-year career with the company. Dance found her at a very early age and she credits Principal Artistic Coach Magdalena Popa, leading choreographers and the full range of classic and contemporary ballet repertoire offered to her for her artistic success. She talks about her pre-show ritual, her favourite ballet, guesting, her longevity, juggling family and career, and her decision to retire. The conversation closes on her next project and with advice to aspiring dancers.

Over the course of a fast-paced conversation with Cathy Levy, Helsinki-born Mikko Nissinen, Artistic Director of Boston Ballet, describes how he stumbled into dance and how a strong technique and infectious enthusiasm for the art form rapidly led him to soloist roles with The Finnish National Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Basel Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. Having always aspired to be an artistic director, he assumed this position with Marin Ballet and Alberta Ballet before joining Boston Ballet in 2005 as an agent of change. The company has since grown exponentially in size, purpose and reputation, enticing most recently the great William Forsythe to make it his home.

Guest host Lindsay Lachance, Artistic Associate with the National Arts Centre’s brand new Indigenous Theatre Department, chatted with Margaret and Andrew Grenier of the family-led Indigenous dance company Dancers of Damelahamid a few days before its NAC debut and world premiere presentation of Mînowin. Margaret explains how she grew up among the Gitxsan people of the Northwest coast of British Columbia immersed in the knowledge and practice of her family’s lineage and tradition. Aware of the role that each generation plays in continuing the practice, she and Andrew are dedicating their lives to the process of revitalization. Their contemporary dance work Mînowin, generations in the making, looks at what emerges from the epic loss and imbalance of the past.

Cathy Levy’s conversation with acclaimed Canadian contemporary dance performer, choreographer, master teacher and mentor Peggy Baker opens with memories of Wim Wenders and Pina Bausch. From there, Peggy speaks of her youth, her fateful encounter with Patricia Beatty, her professional dance career that brought her to Toronto’s Dancemakers and then to New York’s Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mark Morris and the White Oak Dance Project. She returned to Toronto in 1990 to form her own company to support her solo career and has been choreographing for small ensembles since 2010. Her most recent creation who we are in the dark that features Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara of Arcade Fire was performed at the NAC in April 2019.

Cathy converses with internationally acclaimed, award-winning Vancouver dance artist Crystal Pite following the NAC opening night performance of Revisor, her most recent choreographic work co-created with Canadian actor/writer Jonathon Young. They touch on Crystal’s childhood aspiration to be a complete dance artist, her early choreographic career, the founding of her company Kidd Pivot in 2002 that united the dancer and choreographer in herself, and life-work balance. Crystal has created over 50 works for her company and others such as Ballet British Columbia, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater and The Royal Ballet. In great demand internationally, her immediate future includes a tour of Revisor and commissions by The Paris Opera Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and Nederlands Dans Theater.

In this NAC 50th Anniversary podcast, Karen Kain, Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, and Rex Harrington, Artist-in-Residence, both acclaimed former principal dancers with the company, share memories about performing at the National Arts Centre and during Karen’s farewell tour across Canada. Throughout her career, opportunities came to Karen through artists Rudolph Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, John Neumeier, Glen Tetley and Jiří Kylián and her exquisite performances were made all the more memorable by Rex’s innate gift for magical and magnetic partnering. Under her artistic directorship, The National Ballet of Canada has become one of the top international companies in the world. Both she and Rex explain how this was achieved. In closing, Rex speaks of the rewards of coaching and passing on knowledge while Karen shares her vision for the coming years.

Cathy Levy chats with Jean Grand-Maître, Artistic Director of Alberta Ballet, choreographer and recent recipient of the Order of Canada, about the full-evening portrait ballet Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle and the Drum that will close the National Arts Centre 2018-2019 Dance season. Co-created with the iconic singer-songwriter —who celebrated her 75th birthday in 2018— the work, which addresses war and environmental neglect, was initially produced in celebration of Alberta Ballet’s 40th Anniversary. Jean describes his first encounter with Joni, their relationship, past and present, her approach to creation, her extensive contribution to the ballet, her passion for humanitarian causes, and the degree to which she has inspired him. This original venture unexpectedly opened the door to similar collaborations with or about other supreme popular music artists such as Sir Elton John, Gordon Lightfoot, The Tragically Hip, k.d. lang and Sarah McLachlan. The conversation concludes with a few anecdotes about the entertainment industry’s homage to Joni’s life and career held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in November 2018, and the legacy of Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle of the Drum.