This week we’re sharing tributes to all of the 2024 Dance Magazine Award honorees. For tickets to the awards ceremony on December 2, visit store.dancemedia.com.
Mavis Staines, the recently retired artistic director of Canada’s National Ballet School, has been a visionary force in 21st-century ballet. A 1972 graduate of the school she would transform over 35 years of directorship, Staines is admired internationally for supporting ideas about community, body diversity, and well-being for students and dancers.
Those ideas sprang in part from Staines’ own experiences as a ballet student and working dancer, initially with the National Ballet of Canada, where she rose to first soloist, and then with the Dutch National Ballet. Despite her deep love for the language of ballet, Staines says that she was “conscious that there were counterproductive and even abusive practices” that went along with the tradition. “I thought it was a shame, that it didn’t need to be like that.”
After an injury ended Staines’ performing career, she returned to Canada, entering NBS’ prestigious Teacher Training Program, where, she says, she gradually fell in love with teaching. Staines joined the artistic faculty of the school in 1982 and was appointed its artistic director in 1989, taking over from founding director Betty Oliphant. “I knew it was an opportunity to explore how to make authentic systemic change that would endure,” Staines says.
Over the years, Staines has thoughtfully yet firmly shepherded institutional change to ballet training. Her initiatives through NBS include the “Not Just Any Body” symposium, which brought together dance leaders to discuss bodies in dance; the International Audition Pre-Selection Guidelines, aimed at reducing costs and workloads for auditioning dancers; and Sharing Dance, offering community programs to children, adults, and people with diverse needs. Networking internationally has been key, and Staines often gathers with colleagues at events such as NBS’ Assemblée Internationale and the “Addressing Racialization in Ballet” symposium with the Dance Institute of Washington, to brainstorm and share ideas about how to evolve the dance education space.
Into retirement, Staines will continue this work as a global ambassador for Canada’s National Ballet School. “This is really meaningful now that I can choose how to direct my time,” she says. “It is a beautiful way to keep linking arms with leaders and emerging artists and artists around the world to gradually shift the dial in ways that are essential for keeping ballet vibrant and alive into the future.”
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