Speaking of repertory, what do you look for in a choreographer?

I need to understand the choreographer. I usually do a study into what they’ve done. By nature, I’ve always been curious. The obvious choice is to find somebody I knew and go backwards to see what they’ve done. I usually ask them to do something like the next step. I like to take risks—with vocabulary and musicality. 

I don’t want production values for production values’ sake. The heart of it has to be dance. I’ve been very lucky. Billy Forsythe is the most amazing living choreographer today, and the 10 Kylián works are also special. They talk to today’s people. It’s not for the museum, the church; it’s living theatre for today’s people!

What makes for a good program, a good season?

A good program is like when you go to a great restaurant. The chef gets you interested from the get-go, takes you on a journey, a journey of unknown things, but satisfying, unexpected things. In the end, I want people to be truly stimulated, to know something that didn’t exist; to fall in love one more time. 

A good season is balanced works, a multiyear plan with neoclassical and classical works. I like to expose my audiences to works and let the audience make their own decision to like it or not. The other important thing for me that is as important as the works we do is to put myself in the audience. 

The audience’s journey is the most important thing for me. I don’t need validation that something is beautiful. If the production stimulates them, then any realm of feeling or thought is a job well done. The audience is like an electric car—you go to theater to recharge yourself. 

You have a female executive director, Ming Min Hui. It follows, then, that you would hire female choreographers. Why is this important for you?

When this whole topic of female choreographers came up I was in Calgary, with Alberta Ballet. It was nothing but females and world premieres. Every theater, every city has a different culture. I’m glad we shine a light on it. But when I ask many female dancers about this, they say, “I don’t want to think about choreography, I’m so busy.”

The big ballets use a big female corps de ballet. Maybe male dancers have had more time to think about something else. It’s been important to level the playing field through opportunity. We have a choreography workshop for ladies in our school. We give you an opportunity—in order to bring up the next generation of choreographers. The whole world is looking for the next brilliant female choreographer. Give people wings, and let them fly. 

On that note, you once said, “Art is the greatest gift we can give and share in these hard times.” Please elaborate on that, as these seem to be even harder times.

Art often helps societies show the light—what things can be—and hopefully get guided through that. I even have to say that, personally, Covid taught me a lot. I have been skeptical about escapism but, maturing, I see the importance to be transported away. 

More than anything, I think art is food for the soul. If you look at European models of government—of France and Holland, to take a couple of examples—they feel the value of art for human experience is immense. Therefore, government invests in art like it does healthcare. Art can keep humans healthy.

It’s a little bit like I often feel there’s some choreographers who are very understandable. There’s a step, there’s a note, I get it, I’m smart. There are some works of art that aren’t meant to be figured out. You just have to feel with your heart, not figure it out with your brain. It’s important we trust with our senses; let art affect us the way it does.