Hope Muir In Conversation

Photo by Karolina Kuras, courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada

Hope Muir In Conversation with Graham Watts

September 9th, 2024

Susan Dalgetty-Ezra, chair of the London Ballet Circle, welcomed Hope Muir to the evening’s In Conversation. Born in Toronto, her family relocated to London when Hope was fifteen and she went on to train with what is now the English National Ballet School. She danced with the company and later with the Rambert Dance Company. Following a distinguished career on the stage she turned to teaching and management, in 2022 becoming Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada which is to pay a long-awaited visit to Sadler’s Wells in October. Susan also welcomed the well-known dance writer Graham Watts, who would lead the conversation.

Graham initiated the conversation by acknowledging his pleasure in being able to chat again with Hope and went on to explore the early steps in her career. Had she been a dancer before she moved to this country as a teenager? Hope responded that she started Saturday morning dance classes very early, when she was just three or four, most probably so that her mother could get some free time! Having discovered that she was quite good at it she progressed to the School for the Arts in Toronto. At first she was not sure that ballet was for her; she was rather better at other styles of dance and needed some convincing that she should pursue ballet.

Hope’s family relocated to Oxford when she was fifteen, and she started travelling every week to London for professional classes. She saw the London Festival Ballet (as it was known then, now English National Ballet [ENB]), and was excited by their repertoire. It was at that time that Peter Schaufuss, Artistic Director of the Festival Ballet, was embarking on a project for a school to run alongside the company. With some 400 others, she auditioned and was fortunate to secure a place in the school which by now had become, alongside the name change of the company itself, the English National Ballet School.

The new school was tiny, just five female and five male students, and Hope considered they were really guinea pigs in their study of dance. And in truth, she said, no one was very sure what it was all about. As students they were all very different and it was clear that Peter intended each to become a soloist in their own right. They were immediately integrated into the company; they observed company class every morning and within months she was touring with the company. By this time she had really fallen in love with ballet.

Peter ensured they became exposed to many significant figures in the dance and music world so that they acquired a very broad experience in the arts, for instance on one occasion Pierre Boulez gave them a lecture on The Rite of Spring.

The co-location of company and school was relatively unusual, said Graham, and Hope agreed that the situation had essentially been forced on them through lack of physical space. It worked, at least for that first year. Subsequent years proved more problematic; lack of accommodation meant it was difficult to introduce a new group of students to form the school’s second year. And the small number of students together with the need for more space led to difficulties over the financing of the project.

All the students from that first tranche were accepted into ballet companies and have had at least ten successful years in the profession. Some, for instance Paul Egan, went to Berlin with Peter when he moved on, while others remained with the company, Lee Robinson, for example, now a teacher at Elmhurst Ballet School, and Victoria Gordon Harris, Sarah Marshall and Antonia Botten all having long careers with ENB. Hope remains in touch with all her student peers, and counts them as friends; she is godmother to the children of two of them.

Hope graduated into the ENB itself, and Graham asked about her time with that company. What were the highlights? The touring, Hope replied, because there was so much dancing; so much opportunity for growth. At that time the company toured for some nine weeks a year – time in which dancers essentially lived together, time in which they got to know each other closely. There were also foreign tours which were amazing, for instance to Greece, Brazil, and Argentina. And then they would return to London for The Nutcracker over the Christmas period, firstly at the Royal Festival Hall and then the Coliseum or Royal Albert Hall.

Peter Schaufuss insisted that dance training should encompass the styles of different choreographers, thus for instance they worked for six weeks annually on the particular style used by August Bournonville, whose ballets were included in the ENB repertoire. Hope said that this approach was one which she herself had introduced in her present role in Toronto.

The company repertoire was extensive and she danced many roles, acquiring the reputation of reliability and avoiding major injury. She was also known for her athleticism; petit allegro being very much her speciality. Graham suggested that Hope had something of a reputation for being a ‘fiery’ dancer. She didn’t demur, but said that this may be a combination of Bournonville training with some natural ability. She cited one occasion in which on a last night of The Nutcracker at the Royal Festival Hall she and Carlos Acosta both appeared in the Gopak. For that performance they both decided to treat it as a competition to see who could do the best jumps! Entirely unknown to the audience, of course, who would simply have seen some very active dancing….

While her time dancing with ENB was enjoyable it was also hard, and after five years (and during a tour to Liverpool!) there came a moment when she felt she needed to explore something different. Peter Schaufuss had moved and, after Ivan Nagy, then Derek Deane took over as Artistic Director. She felt that she had reached the pinnacle of her time with ENB and that she may not have the opportunity to undertake any major new project under the new regime.

It had just been announced that Christopher Bruce, who she had known for years and whose work and ethos she particularly liked, had become Artistic Director of the Rambert Dance Company (RDC), and accordingly she asked to audition and was accepted into that company. A big change, noted Graham, because the RDC pursued broader styles of classical and contemporary dance. However, Hope considered that Bruce had the ability of bringing forward the right piece at just the right time, using great choreographers such as Mats Ek, Jiří Kylián and Ohad Naharin – all of whom had unique ways of working which certainly maintained the interest of the dancers.

She spoke with appreciation of Bruce’s own Swansong, a piece designed for three male dancers in which she had danced because he sometimes permitted women to participate, and which developed such an intimate relationship between the dancers. Also Four Scenes, created on Hope herself, which had been performed as a livestream from Sadler’s Wells Theatre just after the refurbishments. Bruce created many ballets on Hope during her time with RDC and she danced over 16 Bruce pieces in total.

Graham commented that the RDC studio premises in Jay Mews (in Kensington) had been somewhat ramshackle and constrained, as indeed had those of the ENB at that time. On one occasion, Hope responded, a dancer had been pushed against a wall during a rehearsal of Cruel Garden, and his hand had gone right through! Today Rambert, like ENB, is in a new state of the art facility, with the old site now a block of flats.

Hope remained with the RDC for some ten happy years. She was still an active dancer but could see the end of her career in sight. Additionally, Christopher Bruce was to leave the company, and this seemed very much like the end of a chapter. So, in 2004 and facilitated by Bruce, she made the decision to move back across the Atlantic and join Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, a well-known contemporary dance company where the world of improvisation opened up to her. She also knew she would be able to dance some of the works of William Forsythe and other choreographers that had eluded her in London, which she wanted to do before she finally hung up her dancing shoes.

After some three years with Hubbard Street she retired from the stage and became a guest teacher, repetiteur, rehearsal director – all very much sought after because she had such a wealth of experience to call on. This included working in both the classical and contemporary fields, with many different choreographers – relatively unusual for someone of her generation. And Hope herself saw all her experience as providing potential for whatever would be the next step in her career.

When she left Hubbard Street she came back to London to do a three-month professional teacher training course at the Royal Academy of Dance, because she knew that could assist in finding a suitable job. She also went on to support Emily Molnar, newly appointed to Ballet BC back in her native Canada, because she had no clear idea of what would come next.

What came next was in fact Ashley Page offering her a place with Scottish Ballet, although she noted that when she had first sent him her CV he responded that he was seeking to appoint a male ballet master. However, a position opened up and Page offered her a Rehearsal Director position. By 2015 she had been appointed Assistant to Christopher Hampson, the new Artistic Director of the company, and he was extremely helpful in developing her career. Very open, he invited Hope to take part in all his management meetings etc, which enabled her to gain invaluable experience in all the many elements of running a dance company. He was fully aware of her ambition to become an artistic director, and she felt that she really was acquiring the broad range of skills and experience to stand her in good stead when the moment came.

After a couple of applications which went nowhere, in 2017 Hope was appointed to her first Artistic Director post, to the Charlotte Ballet in North Carolina. A small company of some 20 high quality professional dancers, the appointment brought a number of challenges. For instance, one premiere had to be delayed 24 hours due to a set malfunction – not the sort of problem you want when you are trying to make your name with a company. With hindsight, Hope wondered whether she had tried to move too fast with her new company; to bring overly high production values to a company which was not yet completely ready for them. Nevertheless, they all tried their best and some excellent shows were produced.

The fact that all her dancers at Charlotte were on 36 week contracts and had a variety of other jobs to support them through the year was then discussed. Apparently that was, and remains, a quite usual situation in the USA. Hope added other activities such as touring believing that a full-time contract, ie 52 weeks, would be better for the dancers and allow more flexibility for the company. She discovered, however, that many liked the freedom of that lay off time, and would not necessarily want to commit themselves to the company for the whole year!

In her five years at Charlotte, the company produced 12 world and 6 US premieres, an impressive record. She initiated collaborations with other arts organisations in the city in order to get a good ‘buzz’ going. The previous artistic profile of the company had a lot of Balanchine, but Hope was keen to diversify the repertoire. The workload was high – she was at last responsible for all aspects of company life – but she learned a tremendous amount and very much enjoyed her time with the company. Although within all that experience you haven’t actually done much choreography yourself, noted Graham, to which Hope responded that while she had created some small pieces she could clearly see that others could do it better.

Hope’s philosophy has always been to take chances wherever they occur. Don’t turn your nose up at an opportunity because it doesn’t seem important enough. Take jobs as they come. She believes that each and every part of her experience has been valuable, allowing her now to understand, at least to some extent, every aspect of running a company. In passing she wondered how newer, younger dancers without her range of experience may fare in moving straight into the artistic director role, as does seem to happen now.

The funding at Charlotte must have been good, said Graham. Hope agreed that it was, adding that her contract stipulated that she must raise a specific monetary target each year. Rather different from the British situation where at least a certain amount of money comes from central funds. However, she rather liked the discipline and responsibility imposed by her American contract. Income from the fees charged by the company’s school also helped support the company, especially when they were able to attract international students.

And so we come to your present role, said Graham. How did that come about? I was invited to apply, said Hope. She hadn’t thought that she had any chance of success, and that her invitation was nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. Canadian – and a woman. Although possessing wide experience she had no superstar pedigree. And she had just bought a property in Charlotte and was not keen to move. However, during an extended interview process – over Zoom, during Covid – the job steadily became more appealing and she had been delighted to be appointed.

The post in Toronto is officially titled the Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada (NBC). Unusual to have a privately supported post, suggested Graham. Hope explained that these two individuals were noted philanthropists whose support for both the ballet and the school was invaluable, and noted that such posts were common in other institutions such as universities.

You were succeeding an individual who had been in post for many years – was that difficult? asked Graham. The retiring Artistic Director, Karen Kain, could not have been more gracious and helpful, said Hope. However, the regime was different, and there was a need to build trust . The world was coming to the end of the pandemic crisis and dancers had to work to get their focus back. The pandemic closures forced a natural attrition and a number of dancers had decided to retire; accordingly Hope was able to recruit 13 new members for the corps de ballet, which helped provide a new foundation for the company.

Hope is very hands-on, very orientated to working with dancers in the studio. She spends at least some of her time teaching; she wants to see her dancers through every stage of the creative process. Probably that was the biggest change for the dancers themselves. The company is about to stage Ashton’s Rhapsody, for which Hope has decided to take responsibility, blocking out studio time in her busy schedule.

She was also asked about Canada’s National Ballet School and its relationship to the company. They are two completely separate organisations, she replied, although she is a board member for the school and will teach classes there. She takes students into company class, usually four at a time, to give them experience of the profession. She would like to strengthen the relationship; however, entry to the company is not limited to students from the school because she regards a diversity of training as valuable to the NBC.

Finally Hope was asked about the triple bill of modern work which the company is to present at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in October – all more or less unknown to British audiences. She had been keen to present the work of Canadian choreographers. Crystal Pite’s Angels’ Atlas had been on the list when a tour was first mooted prior to Covid, and this would be the ‘anchor’ for the evening. Alongside that would be James Kudelka’s Passionand Emma Portner’s Islands. This latter is a complex and intimate duet for two female dancers who – in Emma’s words – are usually ‘kept a tutu apart’. In this piece the dancers, while clothed separately, are linked within a single waistband.

Over time, Hope has been described as a ‘bold leader’, ‘a visionary’, ‘collaborative’ and ‘innovative’. Graham believed all these to be true. However, he asked what Hope herself considered the primary attribute of a good director? The ability to communicate and through good communication foster collaboration. An ethos of ‘how can we improve it’. Hope noted that choreographer – and good friend – Helen Pickett had described her as a ‘collector of ideas and people’, a description which she is happy to accept!

In concluding the evening, Susan, as chair of the London Ballet Circle, thanked Hope most sincerely for giving the Circle her time. Chat between friends always makes for good listening. She was most grateful to Graham who had posed just the right questions and the evening had been extremely interesting and entertaining.

Written by Trevor Rothwell, approved by Hope Muir and Graham Watts