I would like to talk to you about dance, a fragile and demanding art particularly affected by the pandemic. From one generation to another, so many children bend their bodies to difficult, endlessly repeated exercises. When we are told about the indolence of certain young people, I sometimes contrast it in my thoughts with these entrechats, these dives, these beats, these wide gaps, the fruit of an iron discipline acquired from a tender age. You have to have already seen girls and boys training in the studio to understand the extent and the persistence of their efforts. The dancers are the athletes of art. The quest for excellence remains their daily bread.
“Journalists don’t talk enough about dance,” wrote me one of my readers, Gilles Castonguay, a long-time teacher in this discipline. He was right. Classical or contemporary dance (the borders are being diluted) used to get more media coverage in the past. But her admirers extol her. For elegance, for energy, for prowess. Quite numerous ? No.
I spoke with Anik Bissonnette, who directs in Montreal, rue Rivard, the Superior School of Ballet of Quebec, formerly under the aegis of the Grands Ballets Canadiens. It offers a 20-hour-a-week program for young people aged ten and over who are aiming for a professional career. Flexibility, body coordination, the arch of the feet and other physical criteria are decisive for the apprentice dancer. The fine ear too, the ability to accompany the music with their movements. Add deep motivation, talent.
The former star dancer was in the troupe of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens from 1989 to 2009. Giselle, Swan Lake and other great repertoire roles were carried by her grace and talent. This committed woman, laden with prizes, had set up, in 2003, the Nutcracker Fund to introduce young people from underprivileged neighborhoods to dance. From 2008 to 2010, she led the very leaping and revolutionary company La La La Human Steps. Passionate about classical dance but having practiced jazz ballet during the 1970s, she also performed in all styles at Les Grands Ballets, which welcomed great choreographers from everywhere.
“At school, during my training, we were forbidden to ski and other sports to avoid working the wrong muscles, evokes the former ballerina. Today it is encouraged. Dancers from the Grands Ballets Canadiens, after their day, go to do yoga and Pilates. At our school, we also teach contemporary dance, hip-hop. »
Because the partitions jump. “Dancing is dancing. In the middle, in 2023, we no longer make the difference between genders. The mentality changes. Of course, young people trained in the contemporary register will not peak in Romeo and Julietbut many performances rally all types of dancers.
Moreover, his school has been welcoming ballet instructors from the famous Australian company Stephanie Lake for two weeks. The show Colossus, acclaimed everywhere, will be presented in March at Place des Arts, with local performers, all apprentice dancers. The chosen ones come as much from the institution of rue Rivard with its classical roots as from the School of Contemporary Dance of Montreal. Sixty-five dancers from diverse backgrounds united for a crazy collective symphony.
Yes, but the pandemic effects… Anik Bissonnette sighs: “Dance schools have suffered a lot. Especially among students aged 13-14. At this age, we don’t have the maturity to dance through Zoom. Nothing worked during the lockdown. And then the ballet Nutcracker, which awakens early vocations, lost the poster for two years. Subsequently, recruitment was difficult. We have fewer classes of students this year. »
An angel passes by: “But everything starts again! In December, before the Nutcracker of the Grands Ballets, the halls were full. Subscribers come back, tickets sell out. On TVA, a program like Revolution is great for the world of dance, but when it comes to making a career out of it, people understand: you have to go through a school. We can’t get out of it.
Renaissance of an art emerging from its black hole? Anik Bissonnette is confident in the future. Still, the public must understand how dance offers a wide range of performances. We need to better target and inform. “If they don’t like a style, spectators drop discipline. But the cinema offers all kinds of films and everyone goes to see what they like. »
No, dance does not have the enormous communication tools of the seventh art nor its rallying power. But it vibrates and twirls like an elf. Never let her fly away.