NAC Dance with Cathy Levy
From ballet to contemporary dance, these podcasts feature fascinating conversations between NAC Dance Producer Cathy Levy and some of the world's most exciting dance artists, all of whom will be appearing, or have appeared, at the National Arts Centre.
Episodes
February 26, 2020 • 37 mins
Dana Gingras, Artistic Director of Animals of Distinction and a boundary-pushing choreographer, chats with Cathy while her latest multimedia work FRONTERA is presented at the NAC. The conversation touches on how Dana’s formative years influence the nature of her artistic practice, her work with The Holy Body Tattoo, her love of music and collaboration with cultural icons and artists such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am a...
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January 24, 2020 • 39 mins
In this podcast interview, the incomparable Louise Lecavalier chats with Cathy about her initial encounter with dance, the guidance she received as a novice, and how Edouard Lock came to invite her to join La La La Human Steps where she performed for 18 years, revolutionizing dance and doing guest appearances with superstars David Bowie and Frank Zappa in the process. In 1999, she parts with the company to seek pleasure in new begi...
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December 16, 2019 • 37 mins
The sublime Principal Dancer Greta Hodgkinson spoke with Cathy Levy in December 2019 on the eve of her retirement from The National Ballet of Canada following an extraordinary 30-year career with the company. Dance found her at a very early age and she credits Principal Artistic Coach Magdalena Popa, leading choreographers and the full range of classic and contemporary ballet repertoire offered to her for her artistic success. She ...
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November 15, 2019 • 36 mins
Over the course of a fast-paced conversation with Cathy Levy, Helsinki-born Mikko Nissinen, Artistic Director of Boston Ballet, describes how he stumbled into dance and how a strong technique and infectious enthusiasm for the art form rapidly led him to soloist roles with The Finnish National Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Basel Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. Having always aspired to be an artistic director, he assumed this posit...
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September 30, 2019 • 24 mins
Guest host Lindsay Lachance, Artistic Associate with the National Arts Centre’s brand new Indigenous Theatre Department, chatted with Margaret and Andrew Grenier of the family-led Indigenous dance company Dancers of Damelahamid a few days before its NAC debut and world premiere presentation of Mînowin. Margaret explains how she grew up among the Gitxsan people of the Northwest coast of British Columbia immersed in the knowledge and...
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May 7, 2019 • 47 mins
Cathy Levy’s conversation with acclaimed Canadian contemporary dance performer, choreographer, master teacher and mentor Peggy Baker opens with memories of Wim Wenders and Pina Bausch. From there, Peggy speaks of her youth, her fateful encounter with Patricia Beatty, her professional dance career that brought her to Toronto’s Dancemakers and then to New York’s Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mark Morris and the Wh...
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March 6, 2019 • 40 mins
Cathy converses with internationally acclaimed, award-winning Vancouver dance artist Crystal Pite following the NAC opening night performance of Revisor, her most recent choreographic work co-created with Canadian actor/writer Jonathon Young. They touch on Crystal’s childhood aspiration to be a complete dance artist, her early choreographic career, the founding of her company Kidd Pivot in 2002 that united the dancer and choreograp...
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Karen Kain, Artistic Director and Rex Harrington, Artist-in-Residence, The National Ballet of Canada
February 4, 2019 • 38 mins
In this NAC 50th Anniversary podcast, Karen Kain, Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, and Rex Harrington, Artist-in-Residence, both acclaimed former principal dancers with the company, share memories about performing at the National Arts Centre and during Karen’s farewell tour across Canada. Throughout her career, opportunities came to Karen through artists Rudolph Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, John Neumeier, Glen Tetley and...
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January 18, 2019 • 35 mins
Cathy Levy chats with Jean Grand-Maître, Artistic Director of Alberta Ballet, choreographer and recent recipient of the Order of Canada, about the full-evening portrait ballet Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle and the Drum that will close the National Arts Centre 2018-2019 Dance season. Co-created with the iconic singer-songwriter —who celebrated her 75th birthday in 2018— the work, which addresses war and environmental neglect, was initi...
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November 16, 2018 • 31 mins
Cathy Levy leads a captivating conversation with Alonzo King the day of his company’s NAC presentation of SUTRA, an ensemble work created in honour of the 35th Anniversary of Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Born in Albany, Georgia, to a prominent 1960s civil rights family with ties to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, Mr. King learned early on the importance of aligning actions with beliefs. His natural love of movement led to a...
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May 23, 2018 • 39 mins
Cathy Levy chats with NAC Associate Dance Artist Tedd Robinson, choreographer and artistic director of 10 Gates Dancing Inc, and composer Charles Quevillon on the eve of the NAC presentation and premiere of their latest creation Love & Other Things… a drama for flower, clay and bone. The two met in 2010 when Tedd was commissioned to produce a work for LADMMI and while Charles was at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. The...
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November 10, 2017 • 40 mins
Cathy chats with Canadian-born Aaron S. Watkin one day before the National Arts Centre debut of Semperoper Ballett Dresden with his production of Swan Lake. Since graduating from the National Ballet School of Canada in 1988, Aaron has enjoyed a dizzyingly rich and varied classical and contemporary dance career with The National Ballet of Canada, English National Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt an...
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November 7, 2017 • 40 mins
Cathy speaks with contemporary dance performer and choreographer Daina Ashbee on the eve of the presentation of her first creation Unrelated, a dark duet inspired by the fate of Indigenous women in Canada. A native of Nanaimo, British Columbia, of Cree, Metis and Dutch descent, Daina credits Michael Jackson with awakening her passion for dance. She moved to Vancouver in her late teens to study at Modus Operandi and then dance with ...
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October 13, 2017 • 36 mins
On the occasion of the October 2017 National Arts Centre return of the Finnish contemporary dance troupe Tero Saarinen Company, Cathy Levy has a fascinating conversation with artistic director, dancer and choreographer Tero Saarinen. Tero came late to dance but quickly went from dance school to joining the ranks of the Finnish National Ballet, to studying Nepalese dance as well as traditional Japanese dance, butoh and martial arts,...
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September 29, 2017 • 33 mins
Cathy Levy, Executive Producer of Dance at Canada’s National Arts Centre, chats with Adolphe Binder, the new Artistic Director of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, on the eve of the company’s NAC presentation of Pina’s iconic Café Müller and The Rite of Spring. Adolphe describes her introduction to the world of dance and her past involvement with a number of prestigious German opera houses, publishers and special events, including...
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May 19, 2017 • 68 mins
In this bilingual panel discussion on Creation and Collaboration that preceded the world premiere of ENCOUNT3RS (April 20-22, 2017), animator Catherine Clark speaks with the six Canadian artists involved in this historic NAC dance-music commission celebrating Canada 150. Following a discussion between Executive Producer of Dance Cathy Levy and Music Director Alexander Shelley in 2015, choreographer Jean Grand-Maître (Alberta Ballet...
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December 5, 2016 • 40 mins
On the occasion of the November 2016 National Arts Centre presentation of Fractus V by Eastman, Dr. Yana Meerzon, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Ottawa, chats with Guy Cools, Belgian dance dramaturge and author of the books In-Between Dance Cultures: On the Migratory Artistic Identity of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Arkam Khan and The Ethics of Arts: ecological turns in the performing arts. The co...
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November 4, 2016 • 37 mins
In this captivating NAC Dance podcast interview, Cathy Levy talks with New Yorker Michelle Dorrance, tapper extraordinaire and recipient of a MacArthur Genius grant, on the eve of her company’s National Arts Centre debut. Michelle always knew she was destined to be a tapper. Her mentor Gene Medler exposed her early to numerous tap legends including Jimmy Slyde, Jeni Legon, Henry Le Tang, Fayard and Harold Nicholas as well as to cut...
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April 22, 2016 • 38 mins
Cathy Levy speaks with Catalan dance artist María Muñoz on the eve of her National Arts Centre debut in April 2016. María explains the significance of her separate encounters with Japanese dance theatre artist Shusaku Takeuchi, and with Pep Ramis, her long-time partner, collaborator and co-founder of the group Mal Pelo. In 2001, Muñoz and Ramis acquired a historic property in Gerona which they converted to a centre for multidiscip...
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April 6, 2016 • 38 mins
In this NAC Dance podcast, Cathy Levy chats with Madeleine Onne, Artistic Director of Hong Kong Ballet, on the occasion of the company’s March 2016 National Arts Centre debut. Madeleine notes that dance chose her from an early age and explains how a passion for this art form led her to the role of principal dancer with the Royal Swedish Ballet, the creation of its offshoot Stockholm 59 Degrees North, and her eventual appointment as...
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