Dancers’ Wish: Watch Feet, Not Pretty Faces

They have faces that would stand out even in a crowd of Hollywood celebrities, these two rising stars of the National Ballet of Canada. Sabina Allemann has been described by one writer as “the prettiest face in Canadian Ballet.” Rex Harrington has been cited for his “matinee idol looks.” Few people would dispute either description.

Both will dance key roles--though not together--in Glen Tetley’s “Alice” and John Cranko’s “Onegin” during the Toronto-based company’s engagement June 7-12 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Neither feels particularly happy by the attention to their striking looks.

“It’s flattering to some degree,” said Allemann, 26. “There’s a certain impact initially, which draws people in, but if you don’t come up with the goods, it’s not going to help you.

“I would rather people recognize me not for a pretty face but for my dancing. I don’t even think about how my face looks when I’m dancing.”

Harrington, 25, a model of the tall, dark and handsome Romantic poet, said his looks have made him “marketable” and have helped his career.

“But I don’t look in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, what an incredible-looking person!’ ” he said. “I wish people would really not write how pretty I looked but about my dancing.”

The Swiss-born Allemann had a classic show-biz story rise to prominence. In 1984, the year she also made her debut as Odette/Odile in “Swan Lake,” she had understudied Veronica Tennant in the role of Tatiana for the company’s half-million-dollar production of “Onegin.” Tennant, who had been scheduled for the Toronto premiere, injured her back.

“I studied it with the understanding that if (Veronica) got better and was able, I wasn’t going to do (the role),” Allemann said. But as it turned out, Tennant’s injury persisted, and Allemann got to dance the premiere. She was well received and also danced in the film version made later for Canadian TV.

“The role is very dramatic,” she said. “It drains you physically and emotionally. The choreography is so powerful, it’s not like you have to do anything more. The hardest part is trying not to be contrived in character. The truer you can be to your emotions, the better you can be.”

Allemann, who described herself as “a loner,” remembered how “as a child (I) spent a lot of time by myself--fantasizing.” She applied that conception to her characterization of Tatiana.

“For me, part of her character is her fantasy of meeting an ideal man. But she takes that to an extreme, and so she also is responsible (for Onegin’s challenging his friend, Lensky, to a fatal duel).

“At end of Act I, there’s a change in her. She becomes more realistic. Her head comes out of the clouds, and she realizes that that petty stuff is not all that important. . . .

“I find that if I can get into the drama and not get so caught up thinking about movement, it really helps. . . . I try not to be so literal and to see what happens in the moment of performance.”

Harrington moved up from corps to principal dancer and soloist, “with nothing in between,” he said. “Sometimes I think I might have benefited from spending some time in the middle ground.”

He credits his speedy rise in the Canadian ballet world to an “ability inside to understand a role,” as well as to people viewing him “as a Romantic, passionate dancer.”

But in some ways his youth and looks have worked against him.

“Because of my age, people won’t accept me as the world-weary Onegin,” he said. “I had to think of what I had to do to look older, to be more sympathetic.”

He said Tetley was questioned on casting him as Lewis Carroll in “Alice” because Carroll (a.k.a. Charles Dodgson) “was older than 30 and not attractive. I even tried to look exactly like (Dodgson). I curled my hair. I kept posturing. Finally, Glen said, ‘Just be you.’ I started then to do it right.

“Why did Glen choose me? Because he didn’t want a literal story or look.”

Like Allemann, Harrington tries not to over-intellectualize his roles.

“I don’t really go home and plot out (a character),” he said. “I go with my intuition and feeling for the moment. . . . I love to give myself on stage. That’s probably why I love to dance.”

For all his success so far, Harrington still feels the need to test himself.

“My career is just starting to take off,” he said. “I would like to guest and get out a bit. So far (on tour) I’ve been reviewed favorably.

“But I’d like to push myself more, just to know whether I’m talented or whether I’m a Canadian home-boy type.”

The National Ballet of Canada will be at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, June 7-12. For information, call (714) 556-2787.