Балерина Хизер Огден возвращается в Ванкувер с премьерой сезона Ballet Vancouver

Heather Ogden brings a lifetime of ballet home to Vancouver Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter. Heather Ogden may have lived in Toronto longer than she ever lived on the West Coast, but Vancouver still feels like home. “I grew up in Richmond from the age of six until I graduated at 17,” the principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada shares with the Straight. “Although I’ve lived in Toronto for longer now, I really consider Vancouver home.” Many of Ogden’s formative years unfolded inside a ballet studio. She trained at Richmond Academy of Dance before leaving B.C. as a teen and beginning what would become a decades-long career with the National Ballet. “A lot of people supported me along the way, and I have a lot of loyalty and gratitude for the community that helped bring me to this long and beautiful career,” she says. “It’s really nice to be able to come home and perform for that audience.” That homecoming arrives September 11 and 12, when Ogden performs in Balanchine’s Apollo & Other Works, the opening program of Ballet Vancouver’s inaugural season at the Vancouver Playhouse. For Ogden, the significance goes beyond performing for the community that watched her grow up. Ballet Vancouver is attempting to create something that simply wasn’t available to her as a young classical dancer in Richmond. “At the time, I was definitely passionate about the classical stream of ballet,” she says. “Ballet BC has always been such an incredible company, but they didn’t really offer the kind of classical stream that I wanted to take. So I knew that I would need to leave my hometown to do that, as many dancers do.” Ballet Vancouver, founded in 2025 with a focus on classical, neoclassical and narrative ballet, could give future dancers another option. “It’s really nice to be able to come home to do this and to know that there’s a company now in Vancouver that can kind of house all this ballet talent that will be coming up,” Ogden says. “There are so many amazing schools that are training amazing dancers.” Ogden also sits on Ballet Vancouver’s artistic advisory committee and credits artistic director Joshua Beamish with building momentum around the fledgling company. “I think Josh is very ambitious and energetic,” she says. “He’s good at gathering excitement for this company, so I hope people catch on and get on board because I think it’s going to be a nice thing to be a part of.” For the inaugural program, Ogden returns to a ballet she has been revisiting for much of her career. George Balanchine’s Apollo, created nearly a century ago, hasn’t been performed in Vancouver in 38 years. “Like a lot of classics, they don’t get old, and they’re always a challenge to dance,” she says. “As they pass down through the generations, that doesn’t change. It’s an honour to dance it, and then it’s like you have this responsibility to the role. There’s a quality that you need to bring.” Ogden has danced all three of Apollo’s female roles over the years: Polyhymnia, Calliope and Terpsichore. “I’ve experienced the ballet from three different angles, and through three, maybe more, different stages of my life,” she says. Most notably, she learned Terpsichore while working with Suzanne Farrell, one of Balanchine’s most famous muses and a dancer closely associated with the role. Returning to the work over several years has allowed Ogden to measure her own evolution through it. “It has been a nice vehicle for me to mature in my dancing,” she says. “It’s so nice to come back to a ballet in the same role, but even in a different role.” This time, she will perform with a new combination of dancers. “I’m with an Apollo who’s making his debut, and I’m with three different muses,” she says. “Of course, the version is set, but we’ll have our own chemistry and our own communication between us. I love working with new people, and I love passing on what I know.” For Vancouver audiences who may know ballet more through its reputation than from regularly watching it onstage, Ogden hopes Ballet Vancouver can also reveal just how much sits behind all that apparent effortlessness. “We’re meant to make ballet look easy and effortless,” she says. “What you’re seeing in that evening is the result of someone’s complete lifestyle.” When Ogden first moved from Richmond to Toronto, neither she nor her family necessarily imagined what would follow. “I didn’t really even know what I was getting myself into,” she says. “My mom told me she thought I would just go for the year.” Instead, it has been 29. “I didn’t expect to have this type of longevity,” she admits. Ogden rose through the National Ballet’s ranks to become a principal dancer, but says some of the lessons that have sustained her career have less to do with hierarchy than with the people around her. “Really valuing your colleagues and creating an environment that’s a pleasure to be in, I think, has really added to my longevity in my career and my enjoyment,” she says. Now, almost three decades after leaving Richmond because the classical ballet career she wanted required her to go elsewhere, Ogden returns to a Vancouver stage as part of a company hoping the next generation will have more choices about where they build theirs. Apollo & Other Works runs September 11 and 12 at the Vancouver Playhouse. Tickets here.