casualkerop.blogg.se

1. #Sonia rodriguez professional#
2. #Sonia rodriguez series#

Proficiency and personality have indeed carried her far. “I did not know immediately in what areas she would excel, but she was technically proficient and had a lovely personality.” “She had proven herself a valuable soloist,” he said. Kudelka, who served as artistic director from 1996 until 2005, recalled having the opportunity to promote one female dancer for the 2000-01 season, and picked Rodriguez. I am glad that I was able to be there at the beginning of it.”īorn in Canada to Spanish parents who soon moved back to Madrid, Rodriguez trained at the Princess Grace Academy in Monaco and returned to Toronto not yet fluent in English. “It is quite incredible that Sonia has had such a long career. “A dancer is never their last performance, but a body of work over time, with many influences,” Kudelka reflected in a recent e-mail interview. Rodriguez will take her final bows after starring as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, an adaption of Tennessee Williams’s play by a choreographer she cites as one of her favourites: Hamburg Ballett director John Neumeier. Sonia is an incredible light, and a lot of people are going to miss her presence.” “Actions speak louder than words,” said Skylar Campbell, one of Rodriguez’s frequent partners over the past 13 years.

The number of daily classes she has attended are close to 10,000 at this point. On top of innumerable rehearsals, whether in Toronto or on tour, Rodriguez can be found at barre every morning, even though a star dancer in her 40s would be forgiven for occasionally skipping. Many colleagues cite her as a mentor – not only fellow mothers but the men who learned to partner by holding Rodriguez aloft in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and other ballets. Since then more than a dozen others have given birth and returned to the stage. In 2003, Rodriguez became a mother when no other female dancers at National Ballet had children.

#Sonia rodriguez series#

She went on to become one of the company’s finest Auroras, according to former artistic director James Kudelka, who created several leading roles for Rodriguez in his own ballets.īeyond the studio, Rodriguez reached a much larger audience performing in a series of ice shows with her former husband, Olympic figure skater Kurt Browning, delivering the art of dance to millions of television viewers in the United States and Canada (hopefully, she says, some “bought a ticket to the ballet”). In the early 1990s, Rodriguez danced Rudolf Nureyev’s Sleeping Beauty.

“I always wanted to be a bit of a blank canvas.” “I was always challenged,” she said in a recent interview, citing diverse repertoire and opportunities to grow as an artist as the top reasons she stayed so long, dancing under four artistic directors.

#Sonia rodriguez professional#

And yet, despite her small stature, it’s impossible to underestimate her outsize importance as a Canadian-born dancer who spent her entire professional career with National Ballet. Rodriguez matured to a petite 5-foot-4-and-a-half, the ideal height for a ballet dancer. That’s how much she grew after becoming a corps dancer at the age of 17. Most are hard to quantify, but it’s easiest to start with the two inches. There are countless ways to measure the influence of ballerina Sonia Rodriguez, who retires next weekend after 32 years with National Ballet of Canada.