by Tanya Scholes
A couple evenings ago, I had a lovely chat over a glass of wine with the talented Heather Ogden, Principal Dancer with the National Ballet of Canada.

Well, this isn’t exactly true. We did have a lovely chat, but only I had the wine. I guess if I had to do my job ‘sur les pointes’, in a leotard (oh the horror of it!) and not to mention, in front of an audience of a few hundred people, having wine the night before my opening performance would not be top on the priorities list. Ah, if only we all took our jobs as seriously.

But taking ballet ‘seriously’ really seems like quite an understatement for a woman who made the decision to make dance her life at such a young age. It was the admiration of a babysitter who was taking dance lessons when Heather was just 6 years old that planted the seed (all you babysitters out there, take note. Set a good example). Heather was enrolled in classes like so many other rosy-cheeked little girls. “Eventually,” after a few years of dancing, Heather told me modestly, “I guess I got pretty good at it” and her hard work jeté’d her up into professional level classes.

By the time Heather was in high school, it was arranged for her to leave early to accommodate taking 2 classes a day, 6 days a week. While other kids her age bummed around during the summer holidays, Heather was off to summer school in Winnipeg, Banff and Toronto. But we’re not talking about your average away-from-home camps – these ones came with a serious audition attached. When graduation from high school rolled around, Heather was confident in her aspirations and made the audition that would set her career in motion – literally. At just 17 years old, she was accepted as an apprentice in the National Ballet of Canada and made the move from British Columbia to the big smoke, Toronto.

Fast forward a few years and a couple thousand ‘pirouettes’ later and here she is, all grown up and living a life that very few little girls haven’t dreamt of – suffice to say we’ve all pretended once or twice on Halloween…or even if it’s not Halloween (come on, I’m not the only one that dreams of the Carrie Bradshaw pink tutu). But despite Heather’s success, which has come from discipline, determination, focus and pushing herself, and the realities of life that couldn’t be more opposite than mine, I can say that Heather is very grounded and more the same as, rather than opposite to, all of us average josephines.

While chatting with her, I felt like I was catching up with an old friend. There is such a calm normalcy to Heather – she’s just like you or me – which you wouldn’t expect from someone who is a PRINCIPAL DANCER with the NATIONAL BALLET.

It’s true though, she watches reality TV (and thinks that the dancers on SYTYCD are amazingly versatile), she goes to brunch (loves the Senator), eats take-out (has a soft spot for the Tandoori Curry House in the Beaches) and has been known to kickback at Czehoski. Just like most woman, she remembers where she had her first kisses (like the one with on and off-stage partner, Guillaume Côté…at Insomnia on Bloor St. West), likes her designer jeans (I don’t know, but if I was the Marketing Director at Fidelity Jeans, I’d be getting a pair on those long, lean legs ASAP), reads (I especially love that she is fond of Jonathon Safran Foer’s ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ – my personal favourite) and enjoys a cranberry & vodka or red wine (my kind of lady) here or there. She likes shopping, hanging out at home with friends, has a silly side and even eats candy. Totally normal.

So normal that while I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to spend a day in her shoes (I’m not saying I could even do what she does in her shoes if I was in them), I think that what I would experience is that Heather Ogden is just a normal girl’s girl who just happens to be one of Canada’s National treasures.

I do have to say that I was a bit shocked at Heather’s overwhelming low ratio of pedicures to hours spent on her toes. I would have thought that putting one’s feet through so much wear and tear would definitely warrant daily pedicures.
Instead Heather explained that she has a bit of a symbiotic relationship with her calluses – she needs them to prevent blisters (there go my expectations that Heather would reveal the insightful secret to treating blisters for all of us that teeter on 4 inch heels daily). Maybe the dashing Guillaume gives her foot massages? That, I didn’t ask, but should have.

So next time you’re at Czehoski having a drink and low and behold a beautiful Sugar Plum Fairy appears, relaxing with her real life Romeo, go up and say hi to her. I’m sure she’d have a chat with you as well. Just don’t whinge about how hard you worked out at the gym!

Heather Ogden can be seen dancing the role of The Sugar Plum Fairy in the Classical Ballet, The Nutcracker at The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on December 20th @ 7:00PM, December 22nd @ 2:00PM and December 29th @ 5:30PM.