I feel like this is my family and I grew up here. Without having to go anywhere, I feel like I’ve experienced different companies in that way. There was a lot of switching around of dancers every time a new director came in. I’ve been through three different directors so it feels like they each brought something different with them and a different approach to the company and the look of the company and their priorities. What has kept you with The National Ballet for so long and kept you excited about dancing with them throughout your career? Were there ever any moments you considered dancing elsewhere? It sounds like it! But now, you’ve been there 26 years.
National Ballet of Canada Principal Dancer Sonia Rodriguez in rehearsal/Photo by Karolina Kuras It was good but it was definitely a culture shock. I was the youngest in the company at the time.I think that helps a little bit, people took me under their wing and thought I was cute. I spent the first few months just smiling a lot, just trying to be liked and fit in somehow. The people were so different they were a lot more reserved. It was a much younger country, culturally. I could understand a little bit but I had lost all my English. I was going somewhere far away, I was leaving home. I remember feeling somewhat overwhelmed telling my parents. This big decision, it was going to change everything.
I remember that night, it really hitting me hard, and really realizing that I had made a major change in my life. When I got offered a contract to start immediately, I accepted. So I got on a plane and I came here, very naive and very excited about coming over. She said, “You can come here to the school since you’re only 17, and then wait a year and join the company.” A few months later, someone had left the company and they were looking for somebody she had spoken to the director and he was very interested in me. The head of the jury was the director of the school here at The National Ballet School. When I first came – well, when you’re 17, you’re not really thinking. It seemed like a great place to start I was very excited about the whole prospect. I researched the company the company had a great repertoire of classical and contemporary works. Also, I was Canadian, so it worked in my favor.
I had relatives in Toronto – I was only 17 at the time – and my parents felt a little bit more comfortable knowing that, at a young age, I would be somewhere where people would take care of me. I came here mostly because I had won a competition in Italy and I had the chance to go to a different place. As a child, I always that coming from someplace else made me special and different from the other kids. As a child, for me, Canada was this far away, exotic place. Sonia: I always wanted to come back and learn more about my place of birth. Had you always planned to return to Canada, and how much of a shift and a culture shock was it for you when you did return? You were born in Toronto but spent the majority of your childhood growing up and training in Spain, before coming back to Canada when you joined The National Ballet. Rodriguez and I had the opportunity to talk earlier this month about her journey through the ballet world, what fans can expect from her show in Detroit, and, of course, just what she thinks – and wants – her legacy to be.īallet in the City: We’ll start by talking about you and your journey through the ballet world. Sonia Rodriguez/Photo by Aleksandar Antonijevic