GRETA HODGKINSON IS in the midst of a tour of Eastern Canada with the National Ballet of Canada. The stunning principal dancer is celebrating 20 years in a National Ballet tutu and will be on stage in Toronto this month when the company remounts the popular James Kudelka ballet Cinderella, Nov. 11 to 20.
“IT FEELS GREAT. I mean, I’ve always loved the company, and certainly, when I joined in 1990, who could have really foreseen what happened [staying 20 years],” says Hodgkinson. “The ballet is the kind of career that takes you all over the world and changes all the time. I didn’t really set out to necessarily do that, but the company has been unbelievable to me throughout my career.”
Hodgkinson, a product of Providence, Rhode Island, started her career at the age of 11, far from home, plunked down in the middle of big, bad Toronto as a student at the National Ballet School.
Was she homesick? Of course.She was 11! But, while most youngsters her age are usually tossing around career ideas, such as professional wrestler and official pizza tester for D o m i n o ’ s , Hodgkinson already knew what she wanted to do — dance. And she set about doing just that.
“The hardest thing was being away from home. I was incredibly homesick,” Hodgkinson explains. “But as for coming to school, adjusting to the curriculum, I loved it. That’s all I wanted to do.”
Fast-forward to 1998, Hodgkinson, now one of the bright lights of the National Ballet, is heralded as an international ballet superstar in the making by Dance Magazine as well as the next great muse of choreographer James Kudelka, who promoted her to principal dancer in 1996.
She has lived up to that billing and much more. Since joining the National Ballet as second soloist straight out of the National Ballet School, Hodgkinson set about becoming one of the stars of the company. And she didn’t stop there, expanding her artistic horizons by travelling the world as a guest artist working with some of the greats of the modern era, including choreographers William Forsyth and Jiri Kylian and dancers such as the great Roberto Bolle.
Who is, Hodgkinson assures me, “huge.” In fact, Hodgkinson and Bolle were featured in a series of advertisements for the Gap and fashion shoots in GQ Italia in addition to numerous performances throughout Europe from the La Scala opera house in Milan to St. Petersburg,Russia.
In addition, Hodgkinson has been recognized for her dancing on numerous occasions, including being nominated for the Prix Benois de la Danse — an international award for excellence in ballet — for her role as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, as well as being awarded Best Performance by a Female Dancer by Dance Europe for her role in Swan Lake and her role as Summer in Four Seasons.
Bolle is something, but Hodgkinson can also stake a claim to that “huge” moniker.
“I’ve had amazing opportunities,” she says. “It’s been very fruitful in that way. It has been very nice for me to get to travel but also perform in some of the greatest theatres in the world, being exposed to different audiences. It is great for me to have that balance.”
Magdalena Popa, the National Ballet of Canada’s principal artistic coach, has been working with Hodgkinson since she graduated to the company back in 1990. At once, she worked on the young dancer’s positioning, crafting a technique that worked easily with the dancer’s sublime movements.
“I remember, trying to work very hard on her technique,”Popa explains.“When we started working together, there was a lot of potential,and I had to kind of make her understand how to change some of the things that she knew up until then.
“Since then, we’ve had the most wonderful relationship.…What I found in her was an extreme intelligence with a lot of depth and a lot of intensity.”
Hodgkinson is currently in Quebec City following a performance of 24 Preludes by Chopin at the Grande Theatre du Quebec. The opportunity to travel across Canada to show what a true national ballet company can do is something that excites the veteran dancer about the future.
“Just being able to be here and showing what we can do across Canada, it is so important to a national company to bring that awareness back,” says Hodgkinson, who talks with excitement about the new touring opportunities under the stewardship of artistic director Karen Kain. “She is bringing that awareness back, and I think the company is reaching out on a new level, trying to educate the public that we are not just elitist. People can come who are not sure they’d really like ballet, and they might see something modern, edgy and sexy, and they love it.Karen is really trying to touch everybody, in terms of exposing them to what we are about.”
When Hodgkinson returns to Toronto to star in Cinderella, it will mark her fourth appearance in the ballet.
Of Hodgkinson’s portrayal of the famous girl in the glass slippers, Kena Herod of Maisonneuve magazine says, “Once again, Hodgkinson demonstrated why she is one of this country’s best dancers.…Watching Greta Hodgkinson perform Cinderella, I realized one reason for my fascination is the breathtaking scale of her movement.”
She first starred in Cinderella in 2004 when Kudelka originally created his adaptation for the National Ballet.
“It is a really great take on the story, very funny, and, you know, it’s enjoyable,” Hodgkinson says. “It is family friendly and all that.” And “family friendly” is something Hodgkinson, who is married to Etienne Lavigne, a first soloist in the company, is starting to understand. Last Christmas Eve she gave birth to her first son, Maxime Ashod Lavigne.
“Knock on wood, I’ve never had any injuries to keep me off, so that was the longest time I’ve been away from the stage,and that was kind of different,”says Hodgkinson. “But I feel like it has enriched my career in a lot of ways.”
