Dance Preview: Now Magazine, May 21, 2009
Ballerina Chan Hon Goh exits with grace
Glenn Sumi
I’m waiting for Chan Hon Goh in a boardroom at the National Ballet of Canada. Archival photos of past ballerinas like Karen Kain and Veronica Tennant line the walls, evoking another era.
That’s appropriate, because soon Goh, one of the National’s beloved principals, will be passing into dance history, too. After two final farewell performances of Giselle, she’s hanging up her pointe shoes for good.
"I didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed," says the ballerina, moments after elegantly gliding into the room, her perfume wafting after her. In person, she exudes the same poise and grace under pressure she has for years in the classical repertoire she’s made her own.
"Leaving has been on my mind for a while, especially after the accident," she says, referring to a 2006 car injury that affected her neck and upper spine. (She estimates she’s about 75 per cent recovered.) "But now that it’s a couple of weeks away, it’s going to be difficult to let go of what I know and love so much."
She pauses, then adds, "It’d be a lot harder for me if I didn’t have an amazing husband and family."
Even before the accident, Goh understood more than most that her performing life would one day end. Both her parents were dancers, and after retiring she’ll spend some time with her father’s Goh Ballet Academy in BC.
"It’s inevitable," she says. "I didn’t want to prolong the future. I wanted to bow out on a high note."
A high note, yes – but also a difficult one. Giselle, the story of a simple country girl who dies for love of a prince and then (from beyond the grave) saves him from death, is not an easy piece. Goh admits that what she may no longer have in stamina, she makes up for in experience.
"It’s liberating to be able to draw on past performances, memories of doing the role," she says. "My body might be tired, but I’ve reached an artistic understanding where I can trust myself and my instincts."
Along with Giselle, she mentions Juliet, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and Tatiana (Onegin) as favourite roles.
"These are transforming parts. Every time you dance them you bring something new," she says. "You can’t help but incorporate your own life experience into the role."
Goh’s probably most celebrated for her precision and grace dancing George Balanchine’s works – both with the National and with Balanchine’s protege Suzanne Farrell.
"There’s no story in Balanchine, but there has to be emotion," she says. "Suzanne said, ‘If you put a man and a woman onstage, there’s a story,’ and that changed the way I moved and my level of daring."
Besides passing on her knowledge to students and speaking about dance to groups who know little about the art form, Goh’s looking forward to producing shows. Plus, there’s the expansion of the shoe company, Principal Shoes, she launched with her husband more than a decade ago.
After devoting most of her life to dancing – she took her first lesson at age nine – Goh says she’ll miss the practising and repetition and the opportunity to lose herself in her characters.
What won’t she miss?
"The nerves that come right before you hit the stage," she laughs. "Oh, and waking up in pain.".