'You have an expiration date': Guillaume Côté on retiring from the National Ballet of Canada

Since announcing his retirement from the National Ballet of Canada earlier this year, the Canadian dancer and choreographer Guillaume Côté has naturally been doing a lot of interviews. In one such conversation with Q's Tom Power, he says he's constantly being asked if the reason why he's retiring is because he's aging.

"I feel younger than ever," says the 42-year-old. "The only thing is my knees. If you took an X-ray of the inside of my knee joints, that's probably where I show most of my age."

Côté was 17 in 1998 when he joined the National Ballet of Canada as an apprentice. At 23, he became a principal dancer. The conclusion of the 2024-2025 season will mark the end of his decades-long career with the company, but he says he feels great about his decision to move on.

"I feel great because I've had the best opportunities," he says. "I've maximized my classical dance career at the National Ballet to its fullest and it was my own decision to step away. I decided to step away because the classical form — as beautiful and as incredible as it is — is incredibly demanding on the body…. As soon as you join the National Ballet of Canada, you have an expiration date."

As far as his expiration date goes, Côté says all professional dancers know that their careers are limited by the physical requirements of the job, just like any other professional athlete. "You know there's going to be a better dancer coming up and also dancers get better with each generation," he says.

But unlike other athletes, dancers are not only expected to perform through intense pain, but to look graceful while doing it. Côté says even involuntary expressions like wincing must be done off stage. "Nobody wants to watch a prince who's in pain," he tells Power.

For his next chapter, Côté is most excited to be working more collaboratively as a choreographer rather than expressing the choreography of others.

"With the National Ballet, I have seen 26 years of different choreographers and of different roles and …  I felt like it was getting a bit repetitive," he says. "There's some younger dancers [who are] really, really excited to step into these roles that I'm finding now a little bit more mundane, a little bit more difficult to be inspired by. So it was perfect timing."

Côté's latest project with his company, Côté Danse, is a collaboration with the playwright and director Robert LePage on a new production of Hamlet that runs until April 7.

"I want to keep exploring," Côté says. "I'd like to have Côté Danse become one of those companies that travels around the world, that creates original dance theatre works, but also, I'm always hungry for collaborations. So I'd like to keep collaborating with different art forms as well — multimedia and things like that — to expand movement in general. And also I do really enjoy some downtime, so hopefully I can find some time for that."

The full interview with Guillaume Côté is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. He also talks about his childhood memories of dancing, his past life in a speed metal band and how ballet is kind of like sushi. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Guillaume Côté produced by Cora Nijhawan.