A Conversation with Guillaume Côté

This June, Principal Dancer and Choreographic Associate Guillaume Côté bids “Adieu” to The National Ballet of Canada following a remarkable 26-year career. To mark the occasion, he will perform in Grand Mirage, a new work he created in collaboration with Canadian filmmaker Ben Shirinian, and restage his exhilarating Bolero, set to Ravel’s iconic music. We caught up with Guillaume as he prepares for this career milestone. 

Why did you choose to retire with Grand Mirage?

I had been thinking about how I would step away from the stage of The National Ballet of Canada for a long time – how I wanted to say goodbye to this amazing part of my life. Creation drives me, so I decided to honour that by creating something new. It feels really special to bookend this part of my career with Ben, a friend I’ve collaborated with many times before.

What is the concept?

In talking with Ben, I had the idea for a fictionalized story of a person in transition. I thought a hotel would be a great metaphor for that. So, this person is reflecting on the past and jumping into the abyss of possibilities for the next phase of their journey. At the time I had been looking back at a lot of film footage from my career and it’s almost like those experiences weren’t real, even though they were so important to my life and development. As an artist, you’re always striving to create the definitive moment. That process feeds you, but you’re also chasing a mirage. It’s a nonstop thirst for an unobtainable goal. We named the hotel Grand Mirage because it’s where this person stops and says, well, I have two choices. Either I stay here forever in this odd state of transition or I dive into my next adventure.

Is that a state of mind that resonates with you right now?

I’ve had this career with the National Ballet for over 25 years and before that I was training. I don’t think I ever stopped moving through it all. I just kept going. Now I’m looking back and taking some time to breathe and I can see how beautiful it has all been. It’s overwhelming how much beauty and passion the National Ballet has brought to my life. It’s shaped who I am and it’s something I will carry with me forever. Grand Mirage really speaks to this experience of transition and the idea that you take elements from the past and bring them with you, like imprints in your mind.

What inspires you to collaborate across different art forms, especially with film?

I’ve always been a very collaborative person and I’ve always felt that dance has the potential to go beyond a niche audience. The projects and collaborators I’ve pursued, from Robert Lepage to Michael Levine, have always brought different vantage points to the art form. With film, we get new depths of honesty and intimacy. It can show the most minute emotions and it really amplifies everything in a way the stage doesn’t. The stage is an unbelievably honest place to be, but film can provide immediate context for a story and additional layers to play with.

What made you fall in love with dancing?

I have the distinct memory of being nine or ten years old in a little church basement in Métabetchouan, where I grew up, wearing a gold unitard. We were doing a production of Puss n Boots. I think it was the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary that made me feel this was what I wanted to do. It was magic. It felt like time stopped. Even the air became different. I wanted to keep that feeling alive forever.

Why does choreography appeal to you?

Creativity has been part of my career since day one. At Canada’s National Ballet School, I was chosen to work with John Neumeier on a new piece he was creating for the students called Yondering. I was 11 years old and John and I were in the studio putting together these sequences to music. I loved that experience. When I joined the company years later, James Kudelka was Artistic Director and he created a lot on me – roles like Prince Charming in Cinderella and Will in The Contract. It was the most incredible thing, to be in the middle of that. When Karen Kain became Artistic Director, I developed my own voice as a choreographer while also working with some of the world’s great dancemakers, from Marie Chouinard to Crystal Pite, Alexei Ratmansky and John Neumeier. That shaped a whole second act of my career. 

I always had a choreographic perspective while dancing as well. Particularly when it’s a new role, like Romeo in Alexei Ratmansky’s production. All the in-betweens, all the little moments that I could bring myself to, I did. As a choreographer myself, I love to see the dancers putting themselves into my work. When you watch the Olympics, it’s fabulous to see people executing things that are superhuman. But that’s not what we do. Ballet is not execution. Ballet is the soul.

What do you hope to experience at your final performance?

What’s my grand mirage at the end of all this? I’ve thought about this many times because the work I’m making doesn’t fit into the traditional retirement celebration in a way. When I think of a retirement, I think of the entire company on stage, the confetti, the balloons. This is a more subdued work and one that’s more introspective. I feel like it’s my way of saying goodbye without trying to. I’m at peace with this transition. And there’s no good way of saying goodbye to this career, let’s be honest. It’s been my entire adult life. There’s nothing that could meet my expectations of what this goodbye should be. But I hope it’s honest and I hope I have a great time performing it on that stage one last time because that stage is really special.

How do you feel when you look back on your performing career?

I’ve lived my dreams. I created new roles, I traveled the world as a guest artist, I partnered the best ballerinas – those were my dreams growing up. They came true and they were just as great as I thought they would be. Now I want to give back and support others in this field while I focus on my own company, Côté Danse, which is my next chapter. This goodbye is just an extension of what’s coming next rather than the end of something.

Adieu is onstage May 30 – June 5

Top Photo: Guillaume Côté. Photo by Matt Barnes.