Mavis Staines, Inventive Director of the internationally acclaimed Nationwide Ballet College (NBS) of Canada since 1989, will likely be retiring from the position in June of this yr. As solely the second Inventive Director because the College’s founding in 1959, Staines has guided the group via evolutions, with a said and confirmed deal with inclusion, neighborhood and dancer well being.
Staines’ involvement with the Nationwide Ballet group has been lifelong, beginning along with her coaching on the College and subsequent employment as a Soloist with the Firm, then her training via the instructor coaching program, her employment as a school member with the College, her appointment as its Inventive Director, and at last her extra appointment because the CEO in 2011.
Mavis Staines.
Having seen the group from so many angles and thru so many iterations, Staines had a singular understanding of its tradition. As she formed its potential to develop into one of many world’s main pre-professional ballet colleges into actuality, she understood the NBS’s duty to have an effect on the tradition of ballet coaching inside its personal partitions, after which worldwide. This problem was not small, and is an ongoing and ever-evolving activity, given the ballet world’s fondness for custom.
Among the modifications Staines applied had been as easy and as efficient as eliminating weight scales within the College; the apply of weighing dancers had beforehand been routine. Staines as a substitute developed partnerships with athletic scientists, diet specialists, and bodily and psychological well being professionals. Easy modifications result in milestones. In 2022, NBS was formally designated a Analysis Institute by the Authorities of Canada, supporting evidence-informed apply and giving college students the assets and assist groups wanted to coach just like the Olympic degree athletes they’re.
Staines additionally prioritized alternatives for college kids to develop choreography and management expertise, in addition to develop their creative voices round social justice points. She advocated for “nurturing the entire dancer.”
By means of and along with her position as Director, Staines based a number of initiatives that proceed to influence the native Toronto and wider world dance communities.
The Assemblée Internationale, based by Staines in 2009, for NBS’s 50th anniversary, is a ballet training pageant that attracts dancers and administrators from pre-professional coaching colleges around the globe. NBS hosts coaching, rehearsals, performances, and discussions concerning the evolving tradition and challenges of excessive degree ballet coaching, reminiscent of dancer well being, audition processes, and most just lately in the course of the 2023 Assemblée, anti-Black racism in ballet.
Mavis Staines.
Exterior of her position at NBS, Staines has had constant involvement with the Prix de Lausanne, first as a juror, then jury President, after which as Inventive President till 2008. Notable wins embody the event of well being insurance policies and screening processes to make sure that competitor candidates weren’t solely wholesome sufficient to endure the bodily and psychological calls for of competitors, however that the scouting colleges who provide scholarships via the platform of the Prix met the identical requirements of well being and wellbeing on high of the standard of their supplied coaching.
Different initiatives by Staines via NBS embody:
The Sharing Dance Program, which presents neighborhood dance applications for kids, adults and folks with numerous bodily, developmental and sensory wants, secured via multimillion greenback funding by the Public Well being Company of Canada.
The Symposium Addressing Racialization in Ballet, which, in partnership with the Dance Institute of Washington and Lauri Fitz-Pegado, had its inaugural occasion in 2022, specializing in solution-oriented discussions of fairness, range and inclusion in ballet.
The Worldwide Audition Pre-Choice Pointers, which holds the purpose of standardizing audition video content material and format for firm auditions globally, to ease the price and workload of auditioning dancers.
The Firm Life Program, which acts as a segue to the skilled dance world for pre-professional college students by pairing the rigorous each day calls for of life in a ballet firm with the supportive setting of an academic program.
Mavis Staines with a pupil.
Different associations that acknowledge Staines’ involvement embody Dance/USA, The Dance Advisory committee for the Canada Council of the Arts, and The Dance Neighborhood of Educators in Toronto. Amongst different awards, Staines acquired the Order of Canada in 2010, and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013, each in recognition for her contributions within the subject of dance and dance training.
Staines will stay concerned with NBS and can proceed to advocate for the priorities she introduced throughout her time as Inventive Director. Whereas there’s a shortlist of candidates to take over the position (gathered from an in depth worldwide search), the varsity’s subsequent Inventive Director is but to be introduced. Says Staines, “I’m excited as a result of it’s clear that this shortlist are individuals who consider that now could be the time that we actually must proceed championing the significance of addressing anti-Black racism in how ballet is practiced.”
Staines hopes that her successor continues to cherish the significance of dance inside neighborhood and society, in addition to the varsity’s unique Skilled Ballet-Tutorial Program. “I hope for an understanding that artists needs to be supported and guided to develop their very own voice and be taught to make use of these voices responsibly and creatively to make sure that the standard of artwork, and the methods wherein that artwork is shared, continues to strengthen why dance and ballet are central to folks’s well-being. I hope that the incoming Inventive Director will all the time stay enthusiastic about scrutinizing behavioral patterns and coaching practices, all of which to say, traditions. I’m going to lean into considered one of my favourite expressions, that what is crucial, thrilling and most artistic, is consistently reflecting on whether or not you’re cherishing the grasp’s fireplace or guarding their ashes. I hope for that to be entrance and heart, together with the ability of intergenerational brainstorming, in order that it’s full circle. Management galvanizes when you will have the chance to hear and to champion, to not advise or constrain.”
