Guillaume Côté

Biography

Portrait: photo by Karolina Kuras.

Was born in Lac-Saint-Jean, Québec and trained at Canada’s National Ballet School. Mr. Côté joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1998 and became a Principal Dancer in 2004. In 2013, Mr. Côté was also appointed Choreographic Associate.

With The National Ballet of Canada, he has danced most of the principal roles in both the classical and contemporary repertoire. He has created a number of lead roles in ballets by James Kudelka including Ferdinand in An Italian Straw Hat, Prince Charming in Cinderella and Will in The Contract (The Pied Piper). He also created the role of Romeo in Alexei Ratmansky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Mr Côté is in great demand as a guest artist at major ballet companies around the world, such as Teatro alla Scala, English National Ballet, The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Mikhailovsky Theatre, The Hamburg Ballet and Stuttgart Ballet. He also performed in Kings of the Dance, Gala des Étoiles, Stars of the 21st Century, The Vision of Manuel Legris, Roberto Bolle and Friends, The Hamburg Ballet’s 40th Anniversary Gala and the 44th Annual Nijinsky Gala for Hamburg Ballet Days as well as many other international galas. With English National Ballet, he created the role of Gene Kelly in Derek Deane's Strictly Gershwin.

Mr. Côté is an accomplished choreographer, musician and composer. His choreographic works for The National Ballet of Canada include Venom, Enkeli, Dance Me To The End of Love, Body of Work and Being and Nothingness. Awards for his choreography include the Audience Choice Award for Best Choreography at The Tenth International Competition for The Erik Bruhn Prize for Enkeli, third prize at Ballet Society Hanover’s 25th International Competition for #24 and a nomination for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Choreography for Fractals. Mr. Côté debuted his first full-length ballet, Le Petit Prince, during the National Ballet’s 2015/16 season and created Dark Angels in 2017 for the National Arts Centre. Most recently in 2018, he created the full-length evening Frame by Frame in collaboration with Robert Lepage.

In 2012, Mr. Côté choreographed and starred in the short film Lost in Motion which was presented at Toronto’s International Film Festival. The sequel, Lost in Motion II, was released in 2013 and was featured at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City in 2014. Mr. Côté won a Gemini Award in 2007 and the Galileo 2000 A Life for Music Prize in 2008 for Moving to His Music: The Two Muses of Guillaume Côté. In 2012, Mr. Côté was awarded La Médaille de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, a prestigious award from the province of Québec for his work in the arts.

Mr. Côté is also Artistic Director of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur, one of the largest summer dance festivals in the country.