Dancer faces classical ballet's ultimate challenge

On Saturday afternoon, Alexandra MacDonald performs one of the most difficult movements in classical ballet the Rose Adagio.

"The Rose Adage is iconic," said MacDonald, speaking a few weeks before her performance of Princess Aurora in The National Ballet of Canada's 2018 production of Sleeping Beauty.

The technically demanding movement comes in the first actat Aurora's birthday party, when the princess dances with four suitors, each of whom gives her a rose. There are four balances ferociously difficult where the ballerina is en pointe, the other leg bent waist-high behind her, briefly releasing the supporting arm of her suitor.

Each balance lasts no more than a second or so, but they require maximum strength and stamina.

Ferociously difficult balances

Ballerinas are also judgedfor their ability to transcend thephysical demands by conveying grace, poiseand stability. Throw in the ability to express the qualities of an innocent young girl experiencing romance for the first time, and there's a reason that audiences invariably burst into applause during the Rose Adagio.

MacDonald can't remember a time when she didn't know about the Rose Adagio she thinks she may have first encountered it in a book as a child, growing up in Calgary.

"I feel like I've just always been aware of it," says MacDonald. By now, she's watched many times on stage, standing aside as other Auroras before her took centre stage.

"And every time, I've had so much pleasure watching principles perform it, and each one has her own interpretation of how shy they are, how confident they are. And each principal dancer decides when those moments happen that isn't choreographed."

The Sleeping Beauty ballet itself, an 1890 collaboration between the father of classical ballet Marius Petipa and composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is a test of the entire company's classical mettle.

Legendary Russian dancer Rudolph Nureyev set his version of the ballet on The National Ballet of Canada, putting the Canadian troupe on the international ballet map. Karen Kain made her own leap to ballet stardom performing the role of Aurora with Nureyev as her prince.

In 1973, theNew York Times praised Kain's performance of the Rose Adagio, saying that if all the rest of the company's Auroras performed it as well as the 22-year-old Kain, "the Toronto company has an outstanding reserve of talent for the future."

The ballet is only performed once every four years, and Kain was determined to make MacDonald one of the seven ballerinas to perform Aurora in 2018.

MacDonald's turn comes in a matinee performance near the end of the run.

Kainsays she made the decision, watchingMacDonaldin the Nutcracker last Christmas.

"She has all the qualities of Aurora," said Kain. "When I watched her do the Snow Queen, I saw this luminescence, plus she's very beautiful I don't want to embarrass her," Kain smiled, lowering her voice.

• The Nutcracker: A backstage look at The National Ballet

Equally prized is MacDonald's beautiful jump. "You need to jump like a gazelle," said Kain. "There's a lot of qualities you need in Aurora but if you can't jump, it's not for you."

The challenges keep coming

MacDonald got the news in Kain's office at the Four SeasonsCentrefor the Performing Arts on Queen Street. "I'm so thrilled and happy," MacDonald said. "It's also terrifying and nerve-wracking."

That day, when she learned that in a couple of months' time, she would dance Aurora, MacDonald remembers looking down at her hands, surprised to find them shaking.

The Rose Adagio, the ballet's athletic pinnacle, comes early in the balletso dancers must learn to pace themselves because the challenges keep coming. The ethereal second act in which Aurora appears to the Prince as a visionis deceptively simple but demands enormous control, said Kain, while the third act with its wedding scene involves "a whole lot of jumping and turning."

The wedding scene is one of MacDonald's favourites, especially the pas de deux she dances with the prince by which timethe shy, uncertain girl from the Rose Adagio is transformed into a confident young woman.

"I really love that solo," said MacDonald. "It feels regal and majestic. I love ending the ballet that way. The first act is bubbly and lively, the middle act is dreamy. And the third act you're married, you're confident, so happy, and in that particular solo, I love being able to embody those things."

What the audience can't see is that by then MacDonald's legs will be shaking from exhaustion.

Kain remembers vividly what it'slike to reach the wedding solo.

"Just the amount of fatigue you have it's so grounding. And it actually makes you feel so much calmer and better when you get to that solo. It's beautifully constructed, this ballet, in terms of how the choreography represents the parts of Aurora's life. That's what we admire about it. And it's why it's a ballet that's still around there are so many challenges for the artists within it."

In casting MacDonald as Aurora, Kain may also have seen something of her younger self in the 23-year-old MacDonald.

Kain laughs with delight when MacDonald tells her that the company's costume mistress fitted the younger dancer with the same ornate tutu that Kain wore as Aurora.

"I'm honoured!" laughs Kain. "It shows what good care we take of our costumes at the National. That tutu goes back to 1972!"

Sleeping Beauty continues at the Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts until Sunday, March 18th.