Emotions run high as Principal Dancer Chan Hon Goh announces her retirement after 20 years with The National Ballet
"Chan has given us 20 years of beautiful and memorable performances at the National Ballet" said Ms. Kain. "Not only has she had a stellar career, she is a wonderfully kind and generous colleague with a professional etiquette and is a great model for young dancers.Chan brings her remarkable energy and dedication to all she puts her hand to, from the building of her business to the raising of her lovely family. I will greatly miss her on stage and off, and look forward to her exciting future."During her remarkable career, Ms. Goh danced almost all the lead female roles in the classical repertoire, including Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Tatiana in Onegin and title roles in Giselle, Madame Butterfly and La Sylphide. Recently, DanceView Magazine wrote "Goh is at the height of her powers, where technical ability and dramatic insight converge. Her dancing these days feels freer than ever; she is totally present and committed to what is unfolding on stage."
Chan Hon Goh and partner Aleksandar Antonijevic performed a segment from The Sleeping Beauty after the Season Announcement.
The 2009-2010 Season Announcement was next on the agenda, and it all kicks off next November with The Sleeping Beauty, a ballet that epitomizes, perhaps better than any other, the meaning of classical ballet.It opens the 2009/10 season on November 13, 2009. Rudolf Nureyev’s The Sleeping Beauty was refurbished and restored to its original splendour to open The National Ballet of Canada’s inaugural season in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts."The Sleeping Beauty has an important place in the history of The National Ballet of Canada.Rudolf Nureyev set his famous version of the work on our company in 1972, an event that is still a famous milestone in our artistic evolution," says Ms. Kain. "It gives me great pleasure to bring the work back this year to allow people the chance once again to revel in the riches and timeless artistry it contains."The Fall Season’s mixed programme continues from Nov. 25 - Nov. 29 2009 featuring a new work by one of the most poised and exciting choreographers today, Edmonton-born Aszure Barton. Ms. Barton’s energetic, often riotously complex and utterly uncategorizable dances, commissioned by, among others, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Martha Graham Dance Company and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, have drawn praise and superlatives from all quarters. George Balanchine’s refined neo-classical The Four Temperaments and Jerome Robbins’ vigorously modernist Glass Pieces are also featured.
Chan Hon Goh and partner Aleksandar Antonijevic dance a selection from The Sleeping Beauty
Chan Hon Goh takes a bow for the assembled media and patrons.
