Swan Song

Announcer: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,

This is your final call.

Karen: It's one of the greatest ballets ever created.

Robert: Swan lake is a huge honour

And a huge responsibility.

Barry: The livelihoods of everyone at the national ballet

Are tied to the success of that production.

Seika: There is just a lot of pressure.

Announcer: Thank you for joining us

For the world premiere of our new production of swan lake.

Karen: It has to be a success.

It has to be.

Barry: I do feel, every day,

We're balancing on the tip of a razor blade.

Arielle: All of us are just like crumbling.

Dancer: Watch out! Oof!

Karen: It's just survival.

Director: What's it like to have a warhol painting?

well, here's the thing.

We had just done swan lake at the met

And I had danced with rudolf nureyev,

When he said, "come with me, come with me.

"we go party, we go party."

I'm doing a terrible, terrible imitation of him!

Director: No, I love it.

Karen: So he has this limo take us over there.

We go up in this elevator in this fancy building

And it's packed full of people.

There's bowls of cocaine on the tables, and caviar.

Every rock star you've ever...

It's... It's a zoo!

And I meet andy and he says,

"she looks like an angel."

But he's so stoned he's just out of his mind,

Like all of them are.

I was limo'd to the factory on a Sunday,

And he mumbled,

And he took pictures from all angles,

And he disappeared.

I just hated it.

I just was like, "all that glitter, ugh!"

You know?

Robert: Karen kain is one of the biggest

International ballet stars ever.

Seika: Completely a legend.

Robert: Like up there with rudolf nureyev

And margot fonteyn.

Siphe: Literally an icon.

Robert: When I go work in russia,

Still the only ballet name they know is

"karen kain."

Paula: Everything that woman touches turns to gold,

Whether it's performing or being an artistic director.

Shaelynn: She's like tom brady, but way cooler.

And I bet she has better political views.

I love you, kk.

Karen: This year was a culmination of so many things,

For me personally and for the national ballet.

But 50 years with the company in my capacity as a dancer

And then artistic director...

It's really time for me to retire.

We needed a new swan lake,

And I thought, "I want to try to find the courage to do this."

Karen: That, some fan gave me, and I don't like it.

But I didn't know what to do with it,

So I stuck it up there.

I am directing for the first time.

I admit that I have no experience.

It's one of the biggest productions that karen

Will have commissioned over her 15 years as artistic director.

She wanted this to be sort of a parting gift to the company.

It's a very, very, very hard ballet to do.

It's elaborate to stage.

It takes a tremendous amount of rehearsal,

And it's a big finale.

Karen: I guess I felt that at this point in my career,

If I felt this strongly about this ballet,

This would be the only time

I would ever have a chance to do it.

Barry: This season was to be epic.

It was to be the send-off for karen kain

After a 50-year career,

And then the horrific reality of covid-19.

Thank you for calling the national ballet.

This is karen kain.

Our offices are now closed.

Please listen carefully for...

Arielle: I really am hoping to be a part of swan lake.

It's a beautiful ballet.

I'm just an apprentice in the company.

Being an apprentice doesn't guarantee

That you're going to enter the company,

So every day, every opportunity,

Is an audition.

Arielle: First day back.

Let me see.

I'll probably just wear one of my, like, favourites,

To be honest.

I'm ready to walk in and be like,

"this is me! I'm arielle." like...

"I'm excited. This is what I can do."

Okay...

I'm ready for the day.

Siphe: I've never done swan lake.

I've always been one of the smallest,

Always been one of the darkest in the room,

But none of that should matter.

What needs to change is the opportunities that are provided.

Why couldn't I be the prince?

Oh, that was hard.

I love swan lake.

I mean, it's just a classic, you know?

The only thing I want in my whole life

Is to be a principal dancer.

But I'm not, like, at that level.

So I will be the nice, like,

30-second duck in the back of the stage.

Okay, google, how's the weather?

Google: Currently in toronto,

It's 62 degrees and mostly sunny.

Today it'll be mostly sunny with a forecasted high of 72.

Jurgita: This will be my tenth different production

Of swan lake.

Swan lake is the ballet I have performed the most

Around the world.

, up!

Oh.

See?

You can't hold the horse back.

What did he tell you?

Jurgita : Swan lake has definitely been always

Somehow my ballet.

So I do expect to dance as swan queen.

Karen: It's been more than two years

We've been talking about swan lake, and...

I think in my mind, just to make it easier for myself,

I just kind of let it go, thinking,

"it's not gonna happen."

I can't believe we're finally getting to do this.

The stop and start,

The excitement and the disappointment...

The first thing is to take off the cat sneakers

And put on the dance sneakers.

The music starts.

It's the key for me to everything.

I hear the music;

My body can remember everything.

I can feel the coordination inside

And can remember every step on every note

That you haven't even thought about for so many years.

But it's still there in some part of your brain.

It's still there.

I just want the national ballet to have a wonderful

And different swan lake

From every other company in the world.

Robert: So, every ballet company has a hierarchy,

And it starts with apprentices.

Those are the newest dancers.

They're the youngest dancers.

They've usually come straight from a school

And they have two years where they're doing

Sort of all the smallest roles

And vying for a contract in the company.

Then from there, the goal is to get promoted

Into the corps de ballet.

This is the huge group that ballet is famous for,

And in the context of swan lake they're the swans.

But they're also all hoping for opportunities to, you know,

Dance in small groups or maybe even have solos.

If you do enough soloist roles well,

You can get promoted to soloist,

And then if people see the potential for you

At a high enough level,

You can get promoted to the rank of principal dancer,

Which is the top, and that's where the expectation is

If you're on stage, you're leading the show.

And all these promotions are solely karen's discretion.

That's up to her.

So, yeah, that's the hierarchy.

Karen: My aspiration for the national ballet

Has always been that we be as good as the best.

And then look at him, and then you have, mmm,

You have more time for all of that.

There's a lot of music.

-Dancer: Okay. -Karen: Try that.

Dancer: Yeah.