Adieu: A Celebration of Guillaume Côté
“Bolero”, “Reverence”, “King’s Fall”, “Grand Mirage”
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Toronto, Canada
May 30, 2025
by Denise Sum
copyright © 2025 by Denise Sum
Guillaume Côté has been a household name in Canadian ballet almost since the start of his career at The National Ballet of Canada 26 years ago. Chosen for prime principal roles early on, his range and depth as a dancer lived up to and surpassed the promise of those early days. He raised the profile of the NBoC and guested internationally with the likes of American Ballet Theatre and La Scala Theatre Ballet. Originally from Lac-Saint-Jean, a small town in Quebec, he graduated from Canada’s National Ballet School and stayed at the NBoC for his entire career. He is also somewhat of a renaissance man, versed not just in dance performance but also in choreography and music composition. He was one of the first choreographic associates of the NBoC and also is the director of Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur. Most recently, he founded his own company, Côté Danse, which will soon tour Canada, the United States and Germany. His story is the stuff of Canadian ballet legends.
Guillaume Côté in "Grand Mirage". Photo by Karolina Kuras.
As such, his retirement is no ordinary dancer farewell at the NBoC. The company has been slowly preparing Toronto audiences for his departure, advertising his final performances as Romeo and Onegin in 2023. In November 2024, the NBoC also included “Body of Work” choreographed and performed by Côté in their fall mixed program. “Adieu” is an all Canadian mixed program paying homage to Côté and marking his final performances with the company. It includes two works by Côté (one restaging and one new work) and two premieres by innovative Canadian dancemakers, Ethan Colangelo and Jennifer Archibald.
The evening began with “Bolero”, a dazzling showpiece Côté created for the NBoC’s 60th anniversary gala in 2012. The featured woman (Genevieve Penn Nabity) is supported by four men (Christopher Gerty, Ben Rudisin, Peng-Fei Jiang and Shaakir Muhammad). She initially appears contained within a makeshift cage of men’s arms. They open and hold and maneuver her limbs every which way in a reference to George Balanchine’s “Rubies”. She is dressed in white while the men wear black, as if she is a puppet and they are the hidden puppet masters. But then as the eponymous score by Maurice Ravel continues to swell in its gradual crescendo, she flicks the men off her body and the choreography for her becomes more active and participatory. By the time the music reaches its apex, her movements have become acrobatic and high flying. Several times she is tossed in the air and makes dizzying twists in the air, like a cheerleader or pairs figure skater, before they catch her again. Her spotting technique, whipping her head around quickly, was so forceful that her French twist hairstyle was unraveling by the end of this 15 minute marathon. If she was tired at all, it never showed. Her stamina here was truly impressive.
Next up was Colangelo’s new work, “Reverence”, a highlight of the evening. Set to an original score by Ben Waters, the work is inspired by Hieronymus Bosch’s painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. The dancers are barefoot in deconstructed, sheer, drapey costumes by American fashion designer Elena Velez. The imagery is sensual and foreboding, with hazy lighting by Jeff Logue moving between darkness, light and glowing red. It opens with one man (Spencer Hack) facing the audience with his back persistently arched so far back that he appears to have no head or neck. The image is eerie and arresting. He is later joined by a chorus of zombie-like figures, all vacant stares and jerky movements. The cast of 11 dancers fully committed to Colangelo’s style that was thrashy and fluid in turn, expressing the tension between pain, anxiety, joy and pleasure being felt in the same instant. Colangelo is the company’s newest choreographic associate and it will be interesting to see more works by him created on the NBoC dancers.
Next was Archibald’s piece, “King’s Fall”, inspired by the strategy and risk inherent in the game of chess. The dancers are the chess pieces and at times the lighting projects the checked pattern of a chess board onto the stage as the dancers stand in staggered formation. Emily Morgan’s costume designs feature gold and silver structured outfits with crowns and Roman helmets. The score is an eclectic melange of contemporary music by Armand Amar, Roger Goula, Tokio Myers and Paul Leonard-Morgan. The choreography is billed as “genre-breaking” and “hip hop meets contemporary movement and ballet”, but the end product was still quite classical in its vocabulary. There is only so much hip hop you can do in pointe shoes. The dancers hit a few hip hop inspired poses with their arms but one would barely pick them out unless looking for them specifically. There were a lot of kick ups into handstands, which could possibly be considered as elements of breaking. Misleading advertising aside, the flow of “King’s Fall” was energetic and engaging. The choreography is vigorous with many pepper shaker lifts, quick drops into grand plié and moves where a dancer is swung back and forth like a battering ram. Heather Ogden, Hannah Galway, Christopher Gerty and Ben Rudisin stood out as the Queens and Kings – major players in this chess game.
The evening ended with Côté’s “Grand Mirage”, an ambitious, 35 minute semi autobiographical multimedia work. It explores the unglamorous aspects of a dancer’s life - the moments of isolation, the frustration of fighting time and the fatigue of constantly chasing an unattainable ideal. It is an honest reflection of a performer looking back at the highs and lows of a career with sober eyes. “Grand Mirage” is a collaboration with filmmaker Ben Shirinian whom Côté worked with in the past for the “Lost in Motion” short films in 2012. It begins with a film that follows the protagonist, an artist in a state of transition. We see him alone in a hotel room, a liminal space marked by uncertainty and unease but also possibility and growth. The film has a dream-like, surreal quality, moving from hotel scenes, to claustrophobic close ups of Côté’s face, to a scene where he is being interviewed on a TV talk show.
After the film ends, the action moves to a replica of the hotel room from the film on stage. What follows is a sort of stream of consciousness series of events and visitors from the protagonist’s past. The most memorable appearance is the “Mystery Guest” danced by Greta Hodgkinson in her first performance with the company since her retirement. It was a treat to see Côté and Hodgkinson together again. She cuts a glamorous figure in a purple jumpsuit, fur coat and sunglasses. They dance a bittersweet pas de deux on his bed set to a Frédéric Chopin nocturne. Other characters include ballet archetypes such as the Sylph (Hannah Galway) and the Faun (David Preciado). The latter is particularly meaningful as Côté has often spoken about John Neumeier’s “Nijinsky” being one of the most treasured ballets in his repertoire.
“Grand Mirage” is not particularly heavy on the dancing. Just as a sequence of choreography gets going, the action shifts to something else. But what the ballet lacks choreographically, it makes up for with theatrical effect. Vivid costumes and sets by Michael Gianfrancesco effectively bring the viewer into the artist’s inner world, full of anxieties and nostalgic moments. The music selections are varied and evocative including Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night”, Peter Gabriel’s cover of “My Body is a Cage”, and music from Ecuadorian-Swiss band Hermanos Guitérrez, Mexican drummer and composer Antonio Sanchéz and American pop lounge band Combustible Edison.
It is unlikely “Grand Mirage” will ever be seen again with a different leading dancer, given that the entire work is wrapped up in Côté’s identity, especially the film component. It is curious that the company would invest so much into a new production with such a short run. Nonetheless, it is a fitting swan song for a singular artist who has left an indelible mark on the company.
Genevieve Penn Nabity, Shaakir Muhammad, Peng-Fei Jiang, Christopher Gerty and Ben Rudisin in Bolero. Photo by Karolina Kuras.
Artists of The Ballet in King's Fall. Photo by Karolina Kuras.
Guillaume Côté and Artist in Residence and Former Principal Dancer Greta Hodgkinson in Grand Mirage. Photo by Karolina Kuras.