From the Montreal Gazette, 03/03/01:
Quote:
Farewell to the 'tiny perfect dancer'
Andrea Boardman bids adieu to Les Grands Ballets Canadiens
Dance has always been a matter of "life or death" for Andrea Boardman. With that in mind, consider how mightily the 40-year-old ballerina has wrestled with one of the sadder aspects of ballet: the dancer's mercilessly short career.
Now, just before her final curtain with Les Grands, Boardman mulls over her career. "What is it about me? What is my trademark? I go through my clippings and realize it's not so much what I danced, but how I danced it."
Convinced her body - "really turned in, really stiff" - would be rejected by today's ballet schools, she says proudly and quietly: "I made it work. I made the most of the good and the bad. I have virtuosity in terms of a range of styles and my spirituality is in my work."
[link no longer active]
<u>Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal Press Release</u>
Andrea Boardman, Principal Dancer with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens De Montréal, Leaves the Company Quote:
Andrea Boardman: Three Decades with Les Grands Ballets
Born in Pennsylvania, Andrea Boardman began her ballet studies in New Jersey and moved on to pursue her training at the National Academy of Arts in Champaign, Illinois, where she was awarded grand prize in the National Merit Scholarship Award. In 1978, she joined the American Ballet Theater's Ballet Repertory Company before moving to Montreal in 1980 and signing on with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal.
<small>[ 10-14-2002, 20:52: Message edited by: Marie ]</small>