‘Burn Baby, Burn’: How Canadian ballet icon Guillaume Côté is confronting climate change through dance

It was a walk in the woods with his seven-year-old son Léo that spurred superstar dancer-choreographer Guillaume Côté to create “Burn Baby, Burn,” a new work about climate change.
“For someone so young, Léo is very conscious, even anxious, about what is happening to the environment,” explained Côté. “At one point he told me he wanted to become a vegetarian because it would help save the planet. Anyway, we were talking about global warming and Léo challenged me by asking ‘What are you going to do about it?’ And that’s how it all began.”
Dance may not seem ideally suited to grappling with such a complex and still contentious issue, but artists trade in metaphors and that’s what Côté does in “Burn Baby, Burn” by focusing on the concept of denialism abstractly through movement.
“The planet is on fire, but still there are those who refuse to believe it and that’s what this is all about,” said Côté. “The energy inside us is a kind of fire that can destroy us or actually be used to save us.”
The house program includes links to organizations dedicated to confronting climate change.
“It’s imperative for everyone to take action,” said Côté.
“Burn Baby, Burn” had its premiere in August at Le Festival des arts de Saint-Sauveur, the popular dance-centred event in the scenic Laurentians north of Montreal of which Côté has been artistic director for the past decade. Toronto audiences will have the chance to see “Burn Baby, Burn” in October as part of the 2024 Fall for Dance North.
To Toronto audiences, Côté is probably best known as the National Ballet of Canada’s reigning prince and as one of its resident choreographers, but the company he has called home since 1998 is completely uninvolved in “Burn Baby, Burn.”
It’s a production of Côté Danse, the independent troupe he officially launched in 2021. The work’s presence at this year’s Fall for Dance is emblematic of a huge transition.
It signals the close of a major chapter and the opening of another in the career of one of Canada’s best-loved and internationally renowned dance artists. Côté will officially retire as the National Ballet’s ranking male principal next June to focus on choreography and the evolution of Côté Danse.
His fans understood that Côté’s dancing years must be near their end. His most recent performances as Romeo and Onegin were clearly the last in those signature roles. What remained unknown was when and how he would take his final bow.
“As a ballet dancer, you always know there’s an expiration date,” said Côté, referring to the relentless physical toll of such an athletically demanding art form. “It’s never easy to acknowledge when the time has come, but this is something I’ve been mulling for quite a while and I always wanted it to be my decision.”
Although Côté’s time at the National Ballet has been blighted by a number of potentially career-ending injuries, it has also been rich and fulfilling and, at age 42 — a long run for a male dancer — he has few regrets.
From the moment he was cast at age 19 as the youngest “Swan Lake” Prince Siegfried in National Ballet history, Côté has never looked back. With his home company he has danced virtually every classical full-length role available, originating two of them, and more bin his guest engagements abroad, with companies such  as American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, London’s Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, Moscow’s Bolshoi and Saint Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky, Milan’s La Scala and Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colón.
Côté claims bragging rights for having danced the prince in seven different “Swan Lakes,” two of those at the National Ballet. His total repertoire over a quarter-century span encompasses 75 ballets, almost 20 of those full-length roles.
“I feel incredibly grateful for so many opportunities,” said Côté over a few beers at a favourite hangout in his South Riverdale neighbourhood. “In many ways I feel spoiled.”
If he does have one regret it’s that the National Ballet was unable for a variety of logistical and financial reasons to fulfil his ambition to dance out his company career in “Nijinsky,” the John Neumeier ballet about the legendary Russian dancer. Côté’s interpretation in the National Ballet’s 2013 Canadian premiere of “Nijinsky” will be remembered as one of his very finest. The time he got to dance it in Paris on the same stage where the real-life Nijinsky performed is among his career highlights.
The alternative offered by National Ballet artistic director Hope Muir is in any ways more appropriate because it looks less to the past than to the future by underlining Côté’s twin accomplishments as dancer and choreographer. Côté’s artistic contributions will be recognized both this fall and at the end of the 2024/2025 season next June.
In the November mixed program Côté will dance the local premiere of “Body of Work,” a solo he created for a 2014 Ottawa gala to honour Governor General’s Performing Arts Award recipient Anik Bissonnette, his friend and Quebec dance icon. Set to the earworm allegretto second movement of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7,” it’s a meditation on how dance connects to the human body’s deepest impulses and emotions.
For a June mixed program titled “Adieu,” Côté is collaborating with Ben Shirinian on a new solo titled “Grand Mirage,” a very personal piece about a man in transition. Shirinian directed the award-winning 2012 dance film “Lost in Motion” featuring Côté as performer and choreographer.
The same program will also feature Côté’s version of Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro,” which he choreographed for the National Ballet’s 60th-anniversary Diamond Gala in 2012. You might have seen it in 2015 at Nathan Phillips Square when it was danced before a 10,000-strong audience during the Pan American Games.
Côté is happy to be sharing the same bill with two younger choreographers, Toronto-born Jennifer Archibald, and Ethan Colangelo, an emerging Canadian choreographer Côté featured at the Saint-Sauveur festival
But then what?
It’s no secret that Côté had aspired to succeed Karen Kain as the National Ballet’s artistic director. Given his and Muir’s relative ages, a decade apart, the opportunity might feasibly arise again.
With young children to co-parent, Côté’s directorial options are for the time being geographically constrained — the vacant post at Australia’s Queensland Ballet would otherwise be a tempting opportunity — which makes his dual roles at the Saint-Sauveur festival and as leader of Côté Danse a very workable basis from which to build a post-ballet-tights career.
As a choreographer, Côté has always placed a high premium on artistic collaboration: with designer Michael Levine for 2016’s “Le Petit Prince” and theatre maverick Robert Lepage for 2018’s “Frame By Frame,” reimagined to great advantage in a 2023 revival.
In April, Côté Danse and Lepage’s Ex Machina again collaborated on “Hamlet: Prince of Denmark.” It sold out Toronto’s Elgin Theatre; 8,000 tickets and a notably younger audience alongside the predictable blue-rinse set.
The compact scale of “Hamlet” and the fact that Côté is more than happy to share the title role gives the work excellent touring prospects. Meanwhile, he and Lepage are talking about another collaboration, about which Côté prefers to remain silent.
“Let’s just say Robert and I get along really well and have an ongoing collaboration,” he said.
In today’s performing arts environment, running one’s own dance company takes courage and determination, but it can also offer advantages.
Operating the troupe on a project basis offers planning flexibility and, with Côté as choreographer, the work can be scaled to accommodate budget limitations and potential market demand. Works can also easily be adjusted to suit different venues.
“Starting a company from scratch means we can control costs,” Côté said. “We’re also not limited to a particular form or esthetic. The classical arts generally are being challenged. Classical ballet is no longer regarded as the ultimate. If we want to build younger audiences we have to find new ways of doing things.”
Despite his Lac Saint-Jean origins and enduring Quebec connections, Côté has put down deep roots in the city that’s been his home since he came to the National Ballet School at age 11.
“I still want to be in Toronto. I love Toronto and, whatever the challenges, I believe there is still so much potential here.”
Self-deprecatingly, Côté said that among ballet fans his name will soon be forgotten. He laughed as he recounted how a fresh apprentice dancer he recently ran into at National Ballet headquarters didn’t have a clue who he was.
It’s true that many once idolized dancers, even marquee names, have faded into obscurity but, with an ambitious new career path as a company and festival director, and as a choreographer already well established, that fate is unlikely to befall Guillaume Côté. It’s a new chapter but the same author.
Fall for Dance North runs Sept. 26 to Oct. 6 at various venues. See ffdnorth.com for information. The National Ballet of Canada fall mixed program runs Nov. 9 to 16, . See national.ballet.ca for information.