National Ballet star Heather Ogden returns to Vancouver for Balanchine's Apollo

Heather Ogden and Jonatan Lujan will perform George Balanchine's Apollo as part of Ballet Vancouver's season opener at Vancouver Playhouse Sept. 11 & 12. Photo by David Cooper /Ballet Vancouver

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When Heather Ogden dances Apollo with Ballet Vancouver, it will mark a long-awaited homecoming.

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The National Ballet of Canada principal dancer began learning her craft at Richmond’s Academy of Dance. But she’s been back to dance professionally in Vancouver only a few times since moving out East to pursue her career.

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“The National Ballet used to do tours of Western Canada every two years,” Ogden said. “I must have done maybe four of those tours.”

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This time, she said, “I’m very excited to be back. And all of my friends and family and supporters are very happy that I’ll be back.”

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Ogden is dancing the role of Terpsichore in Apollo, a George Balanchine ballet from 1928. It’s part of the first program in the inaugural season of new local company Ballet Vancouver.

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Apollo is regarded as a turning point in the groundbreaking Russian-American choreographer’s career. The ballet also holds a special place for Ogden, in part because of the dancers who taught it to her.

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“I actually learned this ballet from two different dancers,” she said. Her teachers were former National Ballet dancer Yseult Lendvai and Suzanne Farrell, one of Balanchine’s most celebrated ballerinas and muses.

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“She was Balanchine’s main muse, or a very big muse of his, and she passed the role on to me.”

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Set to a score by Stravinsky, the ballet follows the young god Apollo as he encounters three Muses — Calliope (poetry), Polyhymnia (mime), and Terpsichore (dance and song) — before leading them to Mount Parnassus. Apollo ultimately singles out Terpsichore, and they dance the ballet’s famous pas de deux.

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“Balanchine was very contemporary for his time, even within the ballet vocabulary,” Ogden said. “It’s timeless and it’s beautiful. I love dancing it. People love dancing it. People love watching it.”

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Part of that timelessness, she says, comes from Balanchine’s distinctive physical vocabulary.

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“It’s very geometric. There’s a lot of amazing shapes. He liked dancers who were very dynamic, a little bit more athletic. So you’ll see these very long lines and much higher legs and kind of like extreme movement.”

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He drew on traditional ballet vocabulary, she said, but “stretched it out.” One signature Balanchine movement involves “taking off for a pirouette with your back leg straight instead of bent.”

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The season opener also includes the Black Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, choreographed by Marius Petipa, one of the most influential figures in ballet history. Slice to Sharp, a high-energy work for eight dancers by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, closes the program.

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Ballet Vancouver made its debut in April with After the Rain & Other Works. Apollo launches its first full season.