Emma Bovary, Angels’ Atlas

The National Ballet of Canada

2024-02-01 20:00 2024-02-03 23:59 60 Canada/Eastern 🎟 NAC: Emma Bovary, Angels’ Atlas

https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/33694

In-person event

Mixed program running time:
EMMA BOVARY with the NAC Orchestra– 61 minutes
Intermission – 25 minutes
ANGELS' ATLAS – 27 minutes

The National Ballet of Canada presents a double bill featuring women choreographers.   Emma Bovary by choreographer Helen Pickett   Emma Bovary is a psychological exploration of the central character of Gustave Flaubert’s 19th-century novel Madame Bovary, and...

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Southam Hall,1 Elgin Street,Ottawa,Canada
February 1 - 3, 2024
February 1 - 3, 2024

≈ 1 hour and 53 minutes · With intermission

Last updated: February 2, 2024

A note from Caroline Ohrt, Executive Producer, NAC Dance

The National Ballet of Canada is promising a captivating mixed program this week with a striking double bill that is equal parts narrative and contemporary. 

Flaubert’s heroine, Emma Bovary, shines through the work of internationally renowned choreographer Helen Pickett in a piece that has been in the National Ballet’s repertoire since the fall. NAC Dance is delighted to present it to you alongside Crystal Pite’s formidable Angels’ Atlas. Originally scheduled in April 2022, this impressive choreographic endeavour brings onstage 35 of the company’s dancers. 

The National Ballet’s yearly visit has been a can’t-miss event ever since the NAC opened in June 1969. We wish them the warmest of welcomes and are thrilled that our special partnership with these incredible artists only continues to deepen year after year. 

Enjoy the show 

caroline-ohrt
Executive Producer, NAC Dance Caroline Ohrt

A note from Hope Muir, Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director, The National Ballet of Canada

We are delighted to be back in Ottawa with a moving program of dance featuring two leading choreographers of our era: Canada’s Crystal Pite and American choreographer Helen Pickett. I have huge admiration for both of these artists and have been fortunate to collaborate with each on multiple projects. It’s especially rewarding to present their work together for the first time for this special engagement at the National Arts Centre.

Both works on this program were created specifically for The National Ballet of Canada, Crystal’s Angels’ Atlas in 2020 and Helen’s Emma Bovary in 2023. While different, each production reflects the unique strengths of our artists and contributes to a distinct identity for the National Ballet as part of our signature repertoire.

Angels’ Atlas and Emma Bovary engage in various modes of storytelling, both narrative and abstract, but at their heart are universally human themes of love and belonging, made vividly alive through exquisite movement and music. I can’t wait for you to experience the powerful worlds that Crystal and Helen have created. On behalf of The National Ballet of Canada, welcome!

Warmly,

hope-muir
Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director, National Ballet of Canada Hope Muir

A note from Crystal Pite, Choreographer, Angels’ Atlas

The impetus for this creation came from my partner and set designer Jay Gower Taylor. Through our last few creations, Jay has been developing a system that allows him to manipulate reflected light. Working with lighting designer Tom Visser, they've been discovering a myriad of ways to deliver light to a surface.

The system is analog, made of the simplest materials, yet it manifests complex, painterly images that have the illusion of depth and a sense of the natural world.

There is a quality of controlled chaos about it. The light dances on a pivoting, reflective topography, creating the conditions for the unexpected to appear. For us, this wall of morphing, shifting light is a frontier, a portal, a portrait of the unknown.

When I was a little kid, my uncle and my dad talked to me a lot about the cosmos. Sometimes I would experience a dizzying thrill in brief moments of embodied comprehension: it felt like I was falling within the vastness of it all. They inspired me to wonder about colossal ideas that were, and always will be, beyond my grasp and to approach great unanswerable questions with imagination and creativity.

Working with light in this way reminds me of that feeling of wonder and my longing to lean into the unknowable. The light looks intelligent, awesome. The chaos and beauty of it make me feel small in a thrilling, destabilized way. Small, in the face of unanswerable questions about things like love, death and the infinite.

The movement of the light is mercurial and ephemeral in the same way that choreography is. It reminds me of something the writer and critic Max Wyman said about dance:

It is an artform that simultaneously defines and defies the ephemerality of existence. We have nothing but the body, and soon enough we will not even have the body.

But it is that physicality that speaks so eloquently about the implications of mortality and at the same time voices our defiance.

No other artform speaks so directly about the fragile, temporary quality of life, or about the human instinct to transcend those bonds and aim for that perfect moment of self-realization.

I like to think of the body as a location, a place where being is held and shaped. In this way, dance gives form to the unknown. In the dancing body, the unknown appears as something both familiar and extraordinary. We might possibly catch a glimpse of something eternal. But both the dancers and the dance are temporary: their beauty resonates with meaning because of their impermanence. This is potent for me. I like working in a form that is always in a state of disappearing.

Our dances, like our lives, are built in relationship with time… and by extension, mortality.

I am trying to create something that speaks of our impermanence and ‘voices our defiance’ as Wyman says. Something that evokes a fierce pulse of life. The ephemeral part will take care of itself.

I would like to thank my masterful and inspiring design team: Jay, Tom, Nancy and Owen, and my tireless assistants Spencer and Stephanie. Thank you to Artemis Gordon and the students of Arts Umbrella in Vancouver who helped me prepare and test choreographic material for this creation. Thank you to Karen Kain for giving me this precious opportunity to make and share my work here. Finally, thank you to the beautiful dancers of The National Ballet of Canada, who are truly the lifeblood of this creation.

bjm-crystal-pite-credit-rolex-by-anoush-abrar
Choreographer (Angels' Atlas) Crystal Pite

Program

Mixed program running time:

Emma Bovary with the NAC Orchestra– 61 minutes
Intermission – 25 minutes
Angels' Atlas – 27 minutes

About Emma Bovary

Hailed as a ‘masterful creator of narrative ballet’, Emma Bovary marks Helen Pickett’s first commission for The National Ballet of Canada. Pickett reimagines Flaubert’s famous novel Madame Bovary from the perspective of Emma herself in this groundbreaking psychological exploration.

With Madame Bovary, first published serially in 1856, French writer Gustave Flaubert created a landmark work of literary realism and a famously complex protagonist in Emma Bovary, an idealistic young woman whose desire to transcend her dull marriage ends in tragedy. Emma’s choices – overspending, infidelity, neglect of her child – tread the line between selfishness and self-preservation and have long made her a divisive figure, as likely to be defended as condemned. Brilliantly, choreographer/director Helen Pickett and director James Bonas have called their new work for The National Ballet of Canada Emma Bovary, liberating Emma from the marital status that eclipses her. This is a ballet from Emma’s perspective; it brings the woman out from the marriage to share her own story.

Things to Know

1. Emma Bovary follows the success of Pickett’s full-length work for Scottish Ballet The Crucible, based on Arthur Miller’s play. The Crucible won a Critics’ Circle Theatre Award and the Herald Angel Award for Choreography in the UK in 2019. For Emma Bovary, Pickett partners with award-winning opera and theatre director James Bonas, as co-director and co-treatment writer. They first worked together on The Crucible and this marks their third collaboration.

2. Emma Bovary does not tell the story of Flaubert’s novel. Rather, it dives into the complex psychology of the title character, a young woman whose attachment to romantic ideals disconnects her from reality, leading to her demise.

3. Pickett has commissioned an original score from Peter Salem, whose work includes award-winning music for the British television series, Call the Midwife. Salem also composed the music for Pickett’s ballet The Crucible.

4. The creative team includes Canadians Bonnie Beecher for lighting design and Michael Gianfrancesco for sets and costumes. They are joined by production designer Anouar Brissel and animator Grégoire Pont, who studied Norman McLaren’s techniques of animation dynamics.

5. This commission is an extension of Hope Muir’s creative relationship with Pickett, having worked on no less than five productions together in Scotland and the US.

Who’s Who: The Characters in Emma Bovary

Emma is a young idealistic woman of ambition and dreams, who yearns for something more than her life and marriage offers her.

Charles, Emma’s husband, is a country doctor who adores his wife but bores her, never truly seeing or challenging Emma.

Madame Bovary, Emma’s mother-in-law, is protective of her son and determined to keep the family together.

Lheureux, a skillful salesman of fancy goods who entices Emma into spending far beyond her means.

Rodolphe, Emma’s lover, is a wealthy local man who is a charming and charismatic serial seducer.

Synopsis

In a small town, the doctor and his wife get ready for a ball. Her husband Charles brings her dress to her and she is thrilled, excited and exalted to step out of her grey marriage and into the light. She is a woman who dreams of bigger things, of romance and revelations, of a life that might yet be. She is Emma Bovary.

At the ball, Emma’s aspirations and dreams are realized and she finds herself swept into the social whirl and the arms of a Viscomte. Charles, delighted with his wife’s happiness, looks on in redundant pleasure.

Back home, under the thumb of her mother in law, Emma cannot breathe. Day by day her humdrum life and its lack of colour ticks by, lifted only by the misbehaving maid Felicité. Charles, the apple of his mother’s eye, assumes all is comfort and bliss.

In the bedroom upstairs, Emma has slipped into the silken sheets of a novel but Charles disturbs her. He looks for comfortable intimacy, she searches for passion and abandon. Failing to find it in the present, she drifts into her imagination and floats away from her reality and into a realm of freedom.

Monsieur Lheureux, a purveyor of fancy goods, with a nice line in sales patter and upholstery, arrives and persuades Emma to replace the empty space of her emotional life with luxury and delight. He offers silks, furniture and the sense of a life she wishes she could be living. Something away from where she is – the imagined future, the possible present. Unmoored from the floor she is free to live in a space where she can be whatever version of herself she desires. She parts with an IOU and acquires a beautiful chair. She places in a special spot and leaves.

Charles’ mother arrives with Berthe, her granddaughter and spots the new and expensive chair. The child, loved by Felicité and her father, is both spurned and needed by Emma. She cannot understand the child’s presence in her life – she cannot form an image of herself as the mother of a daughter whose only option is to grow to be a woman in this limiting and limited world. Her husband has a visitor, a handsome visitor. His name is Rodolphe and Emma’s eyes meet his in a suspended moment. A path is traced before them into the future.

At church, the community gathers and Emma arrives late. She is unsettled and looks for comfort in religion. A moment of epiphany sees a vision of God – a great unveiling of peace and glory. Emma is beatific in this heavenly light – surely, with God’s blessing all will be well. Rodolphe watches. Seeing Emma preparing to leave with her family, he seizes a fragile, fleeting moment alone and allows her to feel the full force of his charm and attention. She is dizzied and they agree to meet.

In the garden at the back of her house, the two lovers find each other. Emma, cautious at first, realizes the ideal version of herself in the silver shadows of the magnolia flowers and in a moonlit night she finds the release, ecstasy and joy in Rodolphe’s arms she yearns for. He finds a new distraction, a new and charming addition to his list of conquests. Emma’s fate is sealed.

Meanwhile, her purchasing has continued unabated and she is now seriously in debt. She visits Lheureux and in a frenzy she buys chair upon chair, issues one IOU after another and unwittingly digs the heavy soil that will come to bury her. Back home, she conceals her purchases from her mother-in-law in a triumph of sleight of hand.

But such highs are hollow and she crashes into an equally deep pit of isolation: from her husband who bores her, from her lover who grows more tired of her by the day, from the shame she feels in the face of the priest and the steady, bubbling fear of the salesman in whose debt she is now dangerously entangled. A web of men who surround her, pull at her and take her freedom. 

Back to the day and her affair continues, now dangerously open: in carriages, in the street. Rodolphe is increasingly disinterested – they make a plan to run away but he leaves and walks from her. She is alone.

Emma has fallen into a torpor and Charles takes her to the opera to bring some joy. There she sees Lucia Di Lamamoor and the drama sweeps her up. The music, the sweep of the story and the tragic figure of Lucia – blood soaked and mindless – combines with Emma to create a moment of ecstatic connection. She enters the world of the opera and the world around her slides. Into a nightmare. What is solid, stable, known becomes fluid and she is lost.

Back at home her world fragments – husband, child, family, fears and hopes collide in a disorienting set of visions and she begins to panic. The edges are fraying. Lheureux arrives and finally, terribly calls in his debt. She must pay or he will take everything. All of her beautiful things, her pride and her shame piled high in the street for all to see. And so she runs to Rodolphe for money and finds him in the street – he must help her, must help her find a way out. But he rejects her, disgusted. She pleads, reminds him of their love, their connection, what he felt for her. And her husband looks on, their child in his arms. Rodolphe leaves and Emma’s world finally unravels. There is no choice left but one.

Cast and Characters

Emma Bovary  

Conductor
David Briskin

Emma Bovary  
Heather Ogden (1, 2)
Jenna Savella (3)

Charles Bovary, Emma’s Husband  
Josh Hall (1, 2)
Donald Thom (3)

Madame Bovary, Emma’s Mother-in-Law  
Chelsy Meiss (1, 2)
Alexandra MacDonald (3)

Felicité, Emma’s Maid 
Emerson Dayton (1, 2)
Tirion Law (3)

Berthe, Emma’s Daughter 
Sophie Lee, Ross Allen, Emma Ouellet 

Rodolphe Boulanger, Emma’s Lover  
Christopher Gerty (1, 2)
Harrison James (3)

Monsieur Lheureux, Fancy Goods Salesman  
Spencer Hack (1, 2)
Kota Sato (3) 

L’Abbé 
David Preciado or Scott McKenzie 

Felicité’s Boyfriend, Justin 
Alexander Skinner 

Opera Singer 
Chelsy Meiss or Alexandra MacDonald 

Lheureux’s Sales Team 
Brenna Flaherty, Clare Peterson, Scott McKenzie or Noah Parets, Isaac Wright, Keaton Leier, Jason Ferro 

Townspeople/Guests of the Ball 
Isabelle Bratt, Emerson Dayton or Tirion Law, Selene Guerrero-Trujillo, Monika Haczkiewicz, Ayano Haneishi, Miyoko Koyasu, Sophie Lee, Arielle Miralles, Emma Ouellet, Tene Ward 

Ross Allen, Jason Ferro, Albjon Gjorllaku or Josh Hall, Peng-Fei Jiang, Larkin Miller, Noah Parets or Kota Sato, David Preciado or Scott McKenzie, Alexander Skinner, Konstantin Tkachuk, Aidan Tully 

About Angels’ Atlas

Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite created Angels’ Atlas for The National Ballet of Canada in March 2020 to rapturous reviews. The ballet unfolds against a morphing wall of light that carries the illusion of depth and a sense of the natural world. Here, the dancing body becomes a sign of humanity’s impermanence and – equally – its vitality within a vast, unknowable world.

Set to original music by Owen Belton and choral pieces by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Morten Lauridsen, Angels’ Atlas is a profound new work from one of the world’s leading contemporary choreographers.

Things to Know

1. The impetus for Angels’ Atlas came from Crystal Pite’s partner and set designer Jay Gower Taylor who worked with lighting designer Tom Visser to develop an analog method of manipulating reflective light to create complex, painterly images. 

2. A quote from writer and critic Max Wyman about dance greatly inspired Pite: “No other artform speaks so directly about the fragile, temporary quality of life, or about the human instinct to transcend those bonds and aim for that perfect moment of self-realization.”

3. Pite wanted Angels’ Atlas to evoke “a fierce pulse of life.” She achieves this in part through the score, which includes electronic music by her longtime collaborator Owen Belton featuring samples of clicking sounds, voices, bells and a heartbeat.

4. Two ethereal choral works bookend Belton’s score: Tchaikovsky’s liturgical Hymn of the Cherubim and Morten Lauridsen’s contemporary work, O Magnum Mysterium. Pite chose vocal works in part because they are tied so irrevocably to the body.

5. Angels’ Atlas won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2020: Crystal Pite for Outstanding New Choreography and Jay Gower Taylor for Outstanding Achievement in Design.

Cast and Characters

Angels’ Atlas  

Heather Ogden and Harrison James (1 and 3)
Svetlana Lunkina and Ben Rudisin (2)

Jordana Daumec and Spencer Hack (1, 2)
Chelsy Meiss and Donald Thom (3) 

Hannah Galway and Siphesihle November (1, 2)
Hannah Galway and Spencer Hack (3)

Alexandra MacDonald 

Spencer Hack and Donald Thom (1)
Spencer Hack and Kota Sato (2)
Kota Sato and Donald Thom (3)

Ross Allen, Isabelle Bratt or Ayano Haneishi, Trygve Cumpston, Jordana Daumec, Shaelynn Estrada, Jason Ferro, Brenna Flaherty, Hannah Galway, Christopher Gerty or Oliver Yonick, Albjon Gjorllaku, Selene Guerrero-Trujillo, Spencer Hack, Monika Haczkiewicz, Jeannine Haller, Harrison James or Ben Rudisin, Peng-Fei Jiang, Tirion Law, Keaton Leier or Scott McKenzie, Alexandra MacDonald, Chelsy Meiss, Larkin Miller, Siphesihle November or David Preciado, Heather Ogden or Svetlana Lunkina, Emma Ouellet, Noah Parets, Clare Peterson or Arielle Miralles, Kota Sato, Jenna Savella, Calley Skalnik, Alexander Skinner, Donald Thom, Tene Ward, Christopher Waters, Isaac Wright 

Artists

  • bjm-crystal-pite-credit-rolex-by-anoush-abrar
    Choreography, Angels' Atlas Crystal Pite
  • Choreography, Emma Bovary Helen Pickett
  • The National Ballet of Canada
  • bio-orchestra
    NAC Orchestra

Principal Dancers

  • guillaume-cote
    Dancer Guillaume Côté
  • Dancer Jurgita Dronina
  • naoya-ebe
    Dancer Naoya Ebe
  • Dancer Christopher Gerty
  • spencer-hack
    Dancer Spencer Hack
  • koto-ishihara
    Dancer Koto Ishihara
  • harrison-james
    Dancer Harrison James
  • Dancer Svetlana Lunkina
  • Dancer Siphesihle November
  • heather-ogden
    Dancer Heather Ogden
  • Dancer Genevieve Penn Nabity
  • Dancer Tina Pereira
  • ben-rudisin
    Dancer Ben Rudisin

First Soloists

  • jack-bertinshaw
    Dancer Jack Bertinshaw
  • jordana-daumec
    Dancer Jordana Daumec
  • Dancer Jeannine Haller
  • alexandra-macdonald
    Dancer Alexandra MacDonald
  • chelsy-meiss
    Dancer Chelsy Meiss
  • jenna-savella
    Dancer Jenna Savella
  • Dancer Calley Skalnik
  • Dancer Donald Thom

Second Soloists

  • Dancer Brenna Flaherty
  • Dancer Hannah Galway
  • Dancer Selene Guerrero-Trujillo
  • joshhall-1755
    Dancer Josh Hall
  • Dancer (On leave) Kathryn Hosier
  • peng-fei-jiang
    Dancer Peng-Fei Jiang
  • Dancer Miyoko Koyasu
  • Dancer Tirion Law
  • Dancer Larkin Miller
  • Dancer Noah Parets
  • Dancer Kota Sato

Corps de Ballet

  • ross-allen-1230
    Dancer Ross Allen
  • Dancer Isabelle Bratt
  • trygve-cumpston
    Dancer Trygve Cumpston
  • emersondayton-30602
    Dancer Emerson Dayton
  • shaelynn-estrada
    Dancer Shaelynn Estrada
  • liya-fan
    Dancer Liya Fan
  • jason-ferro-0930
    Dancer Jason Ferro
  • Dancer Nina Gentes
  • Dancer Albjon Gjorllaku
  • monikahaczkiewicz-3916
    Dancer Monika Haczkiewicz
  • connor-hamilton
    Dancer Connor Hamilton
  • ayano-haneishi
    Dancer Ayano Haneishi
  • nio-hirano
    Dancer Nio Hirano
  • isabella-kinch
    Dancer Isabella Kinch
  • Dancer Sophie Lee
  • Dancer Keaton Leier
  • scottmckenzie-3579-1
    Dancer Scott McKenzie
  • Dancer Arielle Miralles
  • emma-ouellet-1003
    Dancer Emma Ouellet
  • matthieu-pages-1
    Dancer Matthieu Pagès
  • clare-peterson
    Dancer Clare Peterson
  • davidpreciado-3460
    Dancer David Preciado
  • alexanderskinner-4116
    Dancer Alexander Skinner
  • Dancer Konstantin Tkachuk
  • aidan-tully
    Dancer Aidan Tully
  • tene-ward
    Dancer Tene Ward
  • Dancer Christopher Waters
  • isaac-wright
    Dancer Isaac Wright
  • Oliver Yonick
    Dancer Oliver Yonick

Creative Team – Emma Bovary

  • Director / Choreography Helen Pickett
  • Director James Bonas
  • headshot-petersalem
    Music and Sound Peter Salem
  • Animations Grégoire Pont
  • Set and Costume Design Michael Gianfrancesco
  • Lighting Designer Bonnie Beecher
  • Projection Design Anouar Brissel
  • Conductor David Briskin

Creative Team – Angels’ Atlas

  • bjm-crystal-pite-credit-rolex-by-anoush-abrar
    Choreographer (Angels' Atlas) Crystal Pite
  • Original Music Owen Belton
  • jay-gower-taylor-2018
    Reflective Light Backdrop Concept and Design Jay Gower Taylor
  • Reflective Light Backdrop Design and Lighting Design Tom Visser
  • nancybryant
    Costume Design Nancy Bryant

Stage Managers

  • Stage Manager Jeff Morris
  • taylor-troy-web
    Stage Manager Troy Taylor
  • Stage Manager Jacob Wexler

Credits

Emma Bovary

Choreography 
Helen Pickett 

Directors
James Bonas & Helen Pickett

Treatment by
Helen Pickett & James Bonas

Director 
James Bonas

Music and Sound 
Peter Salem 

Set and Costume Design 
Michael Gianfrancesco  

Lighting Design 
Bonnie Beecher 

Animations 
Grégoire Pont  

Projection Design 
Anouar Brissel 

Conductor
David Briskin

Rehearsal Director, Principal Coach
Xiao Nan Yu

Rehearsal Director
Stephanie Hutchison

Stage Managers 
Jeff Morris 
Troy Taylor
Jacob Wexler

Angels’ Atlas

Choreography
Crystal Pite

Original Music 
Owen Belton 

Reflective Light Backdrop Concept
Jay Gower Taylor

Reflective Light Backdrop Design
Jay Gower Taylor and Tom Visser

Lighting Design
Tom Visser

Costume Design 
Nancy Bryant 

Additional Music
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Opus 41, No. 6: Cherubic Hymn 
Performed by Valery Polyansky and the USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir. 
Courtesy of Firma Melodia Music Ltd. 
Morten Lauridsen, O Magnum Mysterium 
Used by arrangement with Southern Music Pub. Co, Inc., Publisher and Copyright Holder 
Performed by Polyphony conducted by Stephen Layton. Courtesy of Hyperion Records Ltd, London. 

Rehearsal Director
Stephanie Hutchison

Stage Managers 
Jeff Morris 
Troy Taylor
Jacob Wexler

World Premiere of Emma Bovary: The National Ballet of Canada, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, November 11, 2023.

Produced and Commissioned by The National Ballet of Canada. 

Lead philanthropic support for Emma Bovary  is provided by The Anna McCowan-Johnson New Creations Fund and The Producers’ Circle and with generous underwriting by the Sabourin Family Foundation. 

World premiere of Angels’ Atlas: The National Ballet of Canada, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, February 29, 2020 

Produced and commissioned by The National Ballet of Canada. 

A co-production of The National Ballet of Canada and Ballett Zürich. 

Philanthropic support for Angels’ Atlas is generously provided by An Anonymous Donor, Rosamond Ivey, Ira Gluskin & Maxine Granovsky Gluskin, The Producers’ Circle, The Volunteer Committee of The National Ballet of Canada and The Gail Hutchison Fund. 

The Producers’ Circle (2023): Gail & Mark Appel, John & Claudine Bailey, Laura Dinner & Richard Rooney, Gail Drummond & Bob Dorrance, Ira Gluskin & Maxine Granovsky Gluskin, The William & Nona Heaslip Foundation, Anna McCowan-Johnson & Donald K. Johnson, O.C., Judy Korthals & Peter Irwin, Mona & Harvey Levenstein, Jerry Lozinski, O.C. & Joan Lozinski, O.C., The Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain, C.C., Julie Medland, Sandra Pitblado, C.M. & Jim Pitblado, C.M., The Harry & Lillian Seymour Family Foundation, The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation and Alexander Younger & Sarah Richardson. 

The company’s Canadian tours are made possible with the generous support of The John and Margaret Bahen Fund of The National Ballet of Canada, Endowment Foundation.  

The National Ballet of Canada

Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director 
Hope Muir

Executive Director 
Barry Hughson

Music Director 
David Briskin

Artistic

Rehearsal Director, Principal Coach 
Xiao Nan Yu

Rehearsal Director 
Stephanie Hutchison

Artistic Administrator 
Gerard Roxburgh

Senior Manager, Artistic Operations 
Jennifer Bennett

Associate, Artistic Administration 
Sarita Dotan

Company Manager 
Nidhi Baadkar 
 
Company Athletic Therapist 
Paul Papoutsakis

Massage Therapist 
Ron Mulesa

Music

Pianist 
Zhenya Vitort

Communications 

Director of Marketing and Communications 
Belinda Bale 
 
Associate Director, Communications and Content Strategy 
Catherine Chang 
 
Senior Manager, Sales and Marketing 
Vicki Munton-Davies

Development 

Director of Development 
Diana Reitberger, CFRE

Officer, Friends’ Corps and Ballet365 
Joanne Kwok

Finance 

Chief Financial Officer 
Amanda Ram

Production

Director of Production 
Christopher Dennis

Associate Director of Production 
Yvette Drumgold

Technical Director 
Peter Eaton

Stage Managers 
Jeff Morris 
Troy Taylor
Jacob Wexler

Lighting Coordinator 
Jeff Logue

Head Carpenter 
Kim Nutt

Head Electrician 
Ashley Rose

Property Master 
Michael Ellenton 
 
Head of Audio 
Ron Gorveatt

Assistant Carpenter / Flyman 
Scott Clarke

Assistant Carpenter 
Cory Hudson

Assistant Electricians 
William Fallon 
Cecilia Waszczuk 
 
Video Technician 
Kimmel Stephenson

Wardrobe Supervisor 
Stacy Dimitropoulos

Wardrobe Head 
Grant Heaps

Assistant Wardrobe Head 
Carrie Cooley Barbour

Hair and Make-up Head 
Jillian Walker

For a complete staff listing, please visit national.ballet.ca

NAC Orchestra

First Violins
**Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Marjolaine Lambert
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Manuela Milani
Zhengdong Liang
*Erica Miller
*Martine Dubé
*Andréa Armijo Fortin
*Renée London

Second Violins
Emily Westell
Emily Kruspe
Frédéric Moisan
Carissa Klopoushak
Leah Roseman
Winston Webber
Edvard Skerjanc
Mark Friedman
**Karoly Sziladi

Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
Tovin Allers
David Thies-Thompson
Paul Casey

Cellos
Rachel Mercer (principal)
**Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Marc-André Riberdy
Leah Wyber
Timothy McCoy
*Desiree Abbey
*Karen Kang

Double Basses
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
Marjolaine Fournier
*Paul Mach

Flutes
Joanna G'froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin

Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen

English Horn
Anna Petersen

Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice

Bassoons
Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau

Horns
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lawrence Vine
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron

Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
*Stéphane Beaulac (guest principal)
Steven van Gulik

Trombones
*Steve Dyer (guest principal)
Colin Traquair

Bass Trombone
Zachary Bond

Tuba
Chris Lee (principal)

Percussion
Jonathan Wade
*Kris Maddigan
*Joshua Wynnyk

Harp
*Angela Schwarzkopf

Piano
*Andrei Streliaev

Synthesizer
*Benjamin Kersey

Accordion
*Matti Pulkki

Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck

Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel

Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall

Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon

*Additional musicians
**On leave
 

Production Team, Southam Hall

Head Carpenter
James Reynolds

Head Electrician
Shane Learmonth 

Assistant Electrician
Fred Malpass 

Property Master 
Timothy Shannon 

Head Sound Engineer 
Dan Holmes 

Assistant Sound Engineer
Thomas Stubinski 

Head Flyman
Ross Brayne 

Electronic Services 

Head
Michael St. Onge 

Assistant
Michael Blanchard 

Warehouse

Head
Kevin Kenny 

Projectionist

Head
David Milliard 

Projectionists, Wardrobe Mistresses, Masters and Attendants are members of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 471. 

NAC Dance

Executive Producer  
Caroline Ohrt 

Senior Producer  
Tina Legari 

Technical Director  
Brian Britton 

Special Projects Coordinator and Assistant to the Executive Producer  
Mireille Nicholas 

Company Manager  
Sophie Anka 

Education Associate and Teaching Artist  
Siôned Watkins

Marketing Strategist  
Marie-Chantale Labbé-Jacques

Communications Strategist  
Alexandra Campeau 

International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees