I recently saw National Ballet of Canada’s production of Alice in Wonderland, on an afternoon when principal dancer Heather Ogden, a native Torontonian, was featured in the titular role. Ogden was sublime as she danced across the stage, but I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for the members of the corps de ballet, the background dancers who didn’t even get biographies in the program. For these young dancers, standing out and making an impact on the ballet world is the antithesis of their job description; their role is to blend in with their colleagues in order to achieve the effect of harmony within the corps.
The Erik Bruhn Prize is an international competition that features dancers under the age of 23. Five companies each sent two dancers to the competition this year: American Ballet Theatre, The Hamburg Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, The Royal Ballet (England) and The Royal Danish Ballet. Each couple danced two pas de deux, or duets: one classic and one contemporary.
Watching the performances was awe-inspiring. The first half of the night — the classic portion — highlighted the dancers’ techniques. There were gravity-defying leaps, impossible numbers of turns, and everything was done with grace and ease. I repeatedly thought that I must be watching the best classic variation of the night, only to be proved wrong by a different pairing of dancers. Emma Hawes of the National Ballet of Canada shone as Odile, the white swan, while James Hay of the Royal Ballet astounded with his almost perfect technique. Both dancers, as well as many others, confirmed why this competition is important. The Erik Bruhn prize is a way of seeing which dancers in the corps are on their way to promotion (Guillaume Côté, principal dancer here in Toronto, competed and did not win).
The second half of the night was a radical change, and really showed off the maturity of the dancers. The contemporary numbers they performed were choreographed specifically for the competition by choreographers also competing for an Erik Bruhn prize, and the dancers rose to the challenge. My personal favourite was Sasha Riva’s piece “Like a Petal in Deep Water,” danced by The Hamburg Ballet competitors; Xue Lin and Aleix Martinez’s performance displayed moments of sheer perfection..
At the end of the night, when the judge’s marks had been tallied, the winners were announced: Ida Praetorius and Andreas Kaas of the Royal Danish Ballet won their respective categories, in spite of being judged separately, as did their choreographer, Alessandro Sousa Pereira. I was surprised, although it seemed almost every dancer I saw deserved to win. The variety of the dancer’s styles meant that personal taste could enter quite heavily into judging, especially when the level of skill was so high across the board.
In a pre-show talk, Karen Kain, artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, suggested that who wins the prize is not actually important. It is the time spent in the rehearsal room preparing for the competition that gives the dancers the kind of attention that members of the corps so rarely receive. The Erik Bruhn prize gives emerging dancers the tools to push themselves harder and emerge as extraordinary artists.
