Karen Kain
Monday 15th April 2013
Civil Service Club, SW1 /
Susan Dalgetty Erza introduced Karen Kain, describing her as a childhood hero. Karen is a former ballerina and current Director of the National Ballet of Canada. She joined the London Ballet Circle while the company was on tour to London – its first UK visit in 26 years.
Karen was born in Hamilton, Ontario to a non-artistic family. “My mother grew up on a farm whereit was all horses and cows, but she loved to play piano. When I was eight, she took me to see Giselle and it happened to be starring Celia Franca, who founded the National Ballet of Canada, and that was it – I was hooked! The drama and the madness of the first act was very powerful, though I did think the second act went on a bit long. After that, I wanted to take lessons so my mum found me a local teacher.”
Karen recalled the teacher having only one record for her to dance to but she loved her training. The teacher wanted her to go on pointe at age nine, but her mother had been reading about ballet and knew it was too young, so she transferred her to another teacher. The new teacher recognised Karen’s talent and suggested she auditioned for the Canadian national ballet school.
Karen was offered a place and left to board at the school from the age of 11. She described how it was “very difficult to be separated from my parents, but necessary.” Celia Franca marked the school students in their annual exams and always gave her honours. Karen was then selected for the company and joined in 1969.
At 5'7'', Karen was at “the tallest end of the spectrum” in those days, so it was hard to find partners. But Celia promoted her rapidly and she got to dance Swan Lake at 19. “Celia was an extraordinary person to work for, very demanding. She gave me enormous opportunities.”
Celia invited Rudolf Nureyev to work with the National Ballet of Canada in 1972. “She needed to make NBC into an international company, so Nureyev was invited to come and stretch the dancers. But he decided he was pretty much running the company!
“From the first day of rehearsals, he pointed at me and told Celia 'that one' – he wanted me to be the company’s lead dancer! Celia thought I was too young but Rudolf had his way. It was an incredible time to be part of the National Ballet of Canada. You couldn't be lazy or unfocused – you had to give 100%.”
In 1973, Karen won a medal at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow for best pas de deux. She had performed the Bluebird pas de deux alongside partner Frank Augustyn, after being coached by Nureyev. Karen described how the medal really built up her reputation at home: “People didn't expect high-quality dancers to come from Canada. But when Frank and I won, they thought, if you're a ballet dancer and Moscow thinks you're good, you must be good!”
While rehearsing in Moscow, choreographer Roland Petit spotted Karen. She and Frank were performing an extract from his ballet Le Loupas their modern pas de deux. “It’s a strange work about a man who's a wolf but it has a beautiful pas de deux. Roland wanted me to come and work with him and I didn't know who he was but I thought, this is great!”
Karen spoke to Celia and she wouldn’t allow her to work with Petit during the Canadian season, so she worked with him during her holiday periods. “When you're that age, you don't care about vacations!”
Later on, when Alexander Grant was director of NBC, Petit offered Karen a contract to work six months with him and six months in Canada each year. Grant discussed the possibility with her but said that he felt she needed a home company and that being in different places wouldn't be in her best interests.Karen therefore had to be selective and only worked with Petit occasionally, but she was able to learn and tour several new works with him. In the same period, she also made guest appearances around the world with Nureyev.
How was it for Karen going back to Canada and performing the classics?“I liked testing myself with the old war horses. Petit was a fun adventure – all about the storyline and the razzmattaz, but there were ballets in Canada that I couldn't do anywhere else.”
Karen remembered when her hectic schedule became overwhelming. She had just performed Swan Lake in Vienna with Nureyev. “It was a great performance, but I thought, is this all there is? I really missed my family and my home. I loved the work but the glamour wasn't everything I thought it would be. I was lonely and I didn't want that to be my life. I realised I needed a home and steady people around me, so I stopped gallivanting around the world.”
Karen described some of the other incredible people she worked with, including Frederick Ashton. “He worked all day in the studio smoking, and then he always wanted to go out afterwards. But we were exhausted!”
Karen retired from dancing in 1996, going into management and then becoming director in 2005. “I was born in the year the National Ballet of Canada was founded and have worked under every artistic director. It was a very interesting transition into management – I was used to being an interpreter and doing what someone required me to do. I had never thought about the bigger picture.
“I'd learnt a lot from all the other directors I'd work with and seen. Celia inspired me – she brought in artists to ignite fire and create magic in the company. When I became director, I knew all that information instinctively – it was there but I hadn't accessed it before.”
Susan asked Karen to speak about NBC’s production of Romeo and Juliet and their tour to London. “I can't believe that Alistair Spalding was so excited at the idea of Alexei Ratmansky's Romeo and Juliet. The ballet hadn't even been started then! I'm still in shock we're here.
“The old Romeo and Juliet [Cranko’s] was beautiful but it was very thin on the demands on the company apart from the main characters. That's fine for the public, but as a director I wanted to challenge all the company dancers. Ratmansky is a master, a story-teller. He really understands how to create character with steps. When I asked him to create the ballet, he was director of the Bolshoi so it took months before he got back to me. I knew we'd have to offer him something no one else was doing to tempt him, so a newRomeo and Juliet was perfect.”
Susan asked how Karen managed to engage Canadian audiences in triple bills. “We did a programme called Innovations, of three new ballets by three Canadian choreographers and it was 82% full during the run. We budgeted very low and we put on other box office hits so we knew we could afford to lose money. We didn't expect it to be so successful.
“The house is always 65% full straightaway, from ticket subscriptions. Social media is also very important – our opening night of Chroma wasn't well sold but rest of the week sold out after all the good feedback on Twitter.”
How would Karen describe the Canadian ballet style? “It’s an international style – it's exuberant and emotional and dancers give everything they've got. Dancers are very physical and it is this extreme physicality that choreographers like to use.”
How has NBC handled the recession? “The company has more private support and less government support. We cancelled a tour to Western Canada in 2008 but otherwise we have weathered it. Canada is a very sensible country.”
Tamara Rojo shadowed Karen in 2009. What does Karen think now that Tamara has become the director of English National Ballet? “Tamara is an amazingly intelligent young woman. She didn't spend much time with me – maybe two hours in the whole month she was with us. But she observed me and she interviewed every department to find out how they worked. I think the directing side was relatively familiar to her, so she used the time to learn more about business and development.”
Susan finished the evening by thanking Karen for generously giving her time during the company’s busy touring week, as well as thanking company Director of Communications, Julia Drake, for arranging the meeting. LBC members were encouraged to visit Sadler’s Wells to see the National Ballet of Canada in performance.
© Laura Dodge for the London Ballet Circle, 2013