Karen Kain

Karen Alexandria Kain, CC (born March 28, 1951 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a retired Canadian ballet dancer.

Early Training

Kain's mother enrolled her daughter in ballet training because she believed it would improve posture, poise, and discipline. Kain began training at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto in 1962. After graduation in 1969, she was invited to join the National Ballet of Canada.

Professional Dance Career

She became principal dancer in 1971, dancing central roles in a wide array of ballets, eventually becoming a well-known dancer in Canada.

She worked as a guest artist with Roland Petit's Le Ballet National de Marseilles, the Bolshoi Ballet, the London Festival Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Hamburg Ballet, the Vienna State Opera Ballet, and the Eliot Feld Ballet.

In the late 1970s Kain stopped dancing, but resumed again in 1980 with the National Ballet of Canada, where she danced for a further 15 years. Kain retired as a professional dancer in 1997.

In 1996, Kain reunited with Frank Augustyn to appear in her husband Ross Petty's panto production of Robin Hood at Toronto's Elgin Theatre.

Awards

In 1973, she won silver in the women's competition and another silver for Best pas de Deux (with Frank Augustyn) at the second International ballet competition.

In 1976, she became an Officer of the Order of Canada and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1991. She holds honorary degrees from the University of Toronto, York University, McMaster University, Trent University, and the University of British Columbia. In May 1998, the French Government named her an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. Among Kain's other honours are the Performing Arts Award (1992) and the National Arts Centre Award (1997). In 1996, she became the first Canadian to receive the Cartier Lifetime Achievement Award. The choreographer Marguerite Derricks cited Kain as one of her heroes.

Administrative career

In 1998, Kain returned to the National Ballet of Canada as part of the senior management team, in the role of artistic associate. She supported artistic director James Kudelka against principal dancer Kimberley Glasco in a wrongful dismissal suit. In 2005, she succeeded Kudelka as artistic director

Kain is the president of the Dancer Transition Resource Centre. In 2004 she was appointed chair of the Canada Council for the Arts, a post she resigned in early 2008 to concentrate on her role as artistic director of the National Ballet. In 2007 Karen Received the Barbara Hamilton Memorial Award from the City of Toronto.

Her autobiography, Movement Never Lies, was published in 1996 by McClelland and Stewart.

Personal life

Kain has been married since 1983 to Ross Petty, a stage and film actor, and producer of theatrical pantomime productions in Canada for over 20 years.

Kain's brother, Kevin Kain, is a noted tropical medicine expert based in Toronto, Ontario; she has three younger siblings.

Trivia

Karen Kain was alluded to in the 2003 movie directed by Denys Arcand, "The Barbarian Invasions" when Rémy Girard reminisced about his past love affairs.

References

External links

• FOOTNOTES - Karen Kain
• Karen Kain: Canada's Prima Ballerina
• The Ballerina Gallery - Karen Kain
• le Gala des étoiles - Karen Kain
• The Canadian Encyclopedia - Kain, Karen featuring a clip of Karen's performance in the National Ballet of Canada's 1976 production of Giselle
• Canada's Walk of Fame: Karen Kain
• CBC Digital Archives: Karen Kain, Prima Ballerina