Interview with
Emily Molnar by Shanny Rann When I think about dance icons who have graced Scotiabank Dance Centre in the past 20 years, Emily Molnar comes to my mind. Last year, she made a great leap of her career to become the artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater. It was not an easy decision, in her own words. Under her leadership (2009-2020), Ballet BC has catapulted onto the international dance stage as a groundbreaking contemporary ballet company. We take pride in Emily’s achievements as one of the very few women choreographers who are actively redefining the face of dance. I reached out to her at the beginning of 2021 and asked on behalf of all her dance fans in Canada: “How are you doing, Emily?” SR: I am curious about your transition from Ballet BC to Nederlands Dans Theater. What are you encountering in your new role? EM: It is a new job, but it has a lot of correlations because the dance world is very small inside a global world. Due to COVID, it is an unusual transition within a very unusual year. I am very happy in my position here with Nederlands Dans Theater that we can still work. What is wonderful is that we have the funding and the support to continue making work. The dancers are seen as top athletes so they can actually connect, and we found this new way of touring through live streaming. We have two companies and they both have their own performance and touring circuits. In our last live stream, which happened a couple weeks ago, we had almost 10,000 people watching from 63 countries including Afghanistan. The one thing I have asked as an artistic
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Dance Central Spring 2021
director, and I would have asked this also of the dancers at Ballet BC before I left when COVID first started: “What can we do now during this time that we wouldn't normally be able to do?” That is what I feel I do as a director—hosting environment for people to come together. “How can we use this moment as an opportunity?” There has been a lot of learning about how to use this time creatively, how to come closer together. It was hard for me to leave Vancouver. I love Ballet BC, being in that community of such vibrant artists. But I really thought it is the right time for the company to move on and transition into a new separate self as an organization. For me, I felt it was the right time too and these jobs do not shift that often, so I had to go with that timing. I was sad to leave but I am excited to be here. It is a big company with wonderful people. It is a huge creation house. I have already been meeting new artists and talking about the future.