Vincent Warren

Vincent de Paul Warren was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He and his fraternal twin Denis were the youngest of their parents' fourteen children. Influenced by his mother's love of opera and music, Vincent was a sensitive boy, receptive to what he has called "a fantasy life of beauty." At age ten, he saw the ballet movie The Red Shoes (1948) and discovered his future profession. At eleven, he began taking ballet classes with Betty Hyatt Ogilvie, a former Balanchine dancer. His twin brother Denis was drawn to the Roman Catholic church and at thirteen left home to join the clergy. Vincent, however, continued his dance training throughout his teenage years. He graduated from high school at eighteen, and soon he, too, left home, headed for New York City with a letter of introduction to Igor Schwezoff, a Russian-trained teacher at the American Ballet Theatre School. He was given a scholarship to study at the school, where he excelled in classes. As a promising student, he was soon offered another scholarship, at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School, where Antony Tudor was teaching. At age nineteen, in 1957, he auditioned for a position in the company at the Met and was hired as a member of the corps de ballet.^[2]

Warren danced with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet for two years, 1957–59, during which time he took the opportunity to expand his training with leading teachers in New York City. In dance classes with Merce Cunningham and James Waring, he became adept in the expressive styles of modern dance while continuing to study classical ballet technique with Igor Schwezoff, Anatol Oboukoff, and Antony Tudor. In 1959-60, he danced with the Santa Fe Opera Ballet and then the Pennsylvania Ballet, based in Philadelphia. In 1961, he joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montréal, where, except for dancing as guest artist with Ballet Nacional de Guatemala (1963) and seasons with the Théâtre Français de la Danse in Paris (1969–70) and the Cologne Opera Ballet (1970–71), he remained until his retirement from the stage in 1979.^[3]

After more than a decade of living and dancing in Canada, he became a Canadian citizen in 1973.^[4]

With Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Warren danced leading roles in many classical, romantic, neoclassical, and contemporary works.^[5] Among them were Albrecht in Giselle, Siegfried in Le Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake), the Poet in Les Sylphides, and Drummer Boy and First Cadet in Bal des Cadets (Graduation Ball), David Lichine's merry romp at a girls' school celebration. He also appeared in principal roles in George Balanchine's Allegro Brillante, Divertimento no. 15, The Four Temperaments, Serenade, and Theme and Variations. Notably, Warren created many roles for the artistic director and resident choreographer of the company, Ludmilla Chiriaeff and Fernand Nault.^[6] He danced principal male roles in Chiriaeff's Bagatelle (aka Jeux d'Arlequin), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Mémoires de Camille, Pierrot de la Lune, Quatrième Concert Royal, and Suite Canadienne, among others. Her penultimate choreographic work was Artère (1976), a solo she made especially for him, set to music by Gabriel Charpentier. In Nault's productions, Warren danced leading roles in Carmina Burana, Casse-Noisette (The Nutcracker), Hip and Straight, Pas Rompu (Not Broken), and the hugely successful Tommy, set to the rock opera by The Who.

In works by other contemporary choreographers, Warren was cast in leading roles in Catulli Carmina and Villon by John Butler, L'Oiseau de Feu (The Firebird) by Maurice Béjart, Icare by Lucas Hoving, Aureole by Paul Taylor, and Les Noces by Lar Lubovitch. In the ballets of Brian Macdonald, Warren starred in Diabelli Variations, Double Quartet, Romeo and Juliet, and Tam Ti Delam, set to a Québécois folk song by Gilles Vigneault. He was especially acclaimed for his interpretation of the title role in Macdonald's Adieu Robert Schumann, created in 1979 for his farewell performance, with both ballerina Annette av Paul and pianist Denise Massé playing Clara Schumann, and along famed Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester singing Clara's reminiscences.^[7] Reviewing the performance, CBC Radio's Kati Vita wrote: "Vincent Warren blazes through the work like a slender crimson flame and compels such attention [that] one is oblivious to all else when he is on stage."^[8]

Warren's curiosity about all forms of kinetic artistry led him to the postmodern experimentation at Judson Dance Theater in New York City, where he appeared in performances with James Waring and Aileen Passloff from 1959 to 1964.^[9] In Montréal, he discovered similar avant-garde dancers at work. While remaining a principal dancer with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, he danced with Le Groupe de Danse Moderne de Montréal, a company formed by Françoise Riopelle and Jeanne Renaud, and, on numerous occasions, with Le Groupe de la Place Royale, directed by Jeanne Renaud and Peter Boneham.^[10] With his varied training, he found that he could perform Renaud's modern minimalism with the same ease and precision he demonstrated in classical ballets. Among other works, he danced leading roles in Renaud's Blanc sur Blanc (1964) and Phases et Reseaux (1965).^[11] Some twenty years later, during the 1987 Festival de Nouvelle Danse, Warren appeared in Paul-André Fortier's Chaleurs and showed that his command of modern dance technique had not faded.^[12] In 2016, Warren agreed to be a part of a project by Sophie Corriveau and Katya Montaignac, produced by Danse-Cité and copresented by Agora de la danse, Nous (ne) sommes (pas) tous des danseurs.^[13] Focusing on specific themes, this 'danced round table' brought together some twenty dancers from different generations to share their experiences and reflections through reading and movement, highlighting the foundations and workings of the dance profession, as well as the myths that accompany it. The work was shown on May 6, 7 and 8, 2016. However, due to an unrelated injury, Warren did not perform on the last night.

On television, Warren performed on many shows originating in Canada and France. In Montréal, he appeared numerous times in works by Chiriaeff, Todd Bolender, and Renaud on Les Beaux Dimanches (Beautiful Sundays) and L'Heure du Concert (The Concert Hour), which were broadcast bilingually by Société Radio-Canada across the country. On film, Warren can be seen dancing with Margaret Mercier in Norman McLaren's Pas de deux (1968), winner of seventeen awards in experimental filmmaking, including the 1969 award for best animated film by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. More recently, he also appeared in two compelling documentary films: Marie Brodeur's Danseur à tout prix (2002) and Marie Beaulieu's Les Météores: Vincent Warren, un temps en mouvements (2011). In 2016, a documentary on Warren was produced by TAP Film Inc and La Compagnie de la Marie, A Man of Dance. The film, directed by Marie Brodeur, won the Best Canadian Film at the International Art Film Festival (FIFA) in Montreal, Canada.

As a performer, Warren was known as a lyrical and romantic dancer, valued for his charisma, theatricality, and vivid stage presence. Although he possessed a sound classical ballet technique, he was not a bravura dancer. Spectacular feats of athleticism were not his forte, but he was a strong and attentive partner in classical roles and was favored by many ballerinas. His partners included such international stars as Ana Cardus, Janine Charrat, Alexandra Radius, Claire Sombert, and Ghislaine Thesmar as well as Canadian ballerinas Irene Apinee, Melissa Hayden, Veronique Landory, Andrée Millaire, Sonia Taverner, and Sonia Vartanian. Warren's looks, physique, and bearing made him an ideal interpreter of classical and romantic roles.^[14] As Albrecht, his partnership with German-born Christa Mertins in Giselle was highly acclaimed, especially in the ethereal, ghostly sequences in act 2.^[15]

Warren was also celebrated in contemporary works that require emotive, expressive dancing. In London, he won high critical praise for his performance in John Butler's Catulli Carmina, set to Carl Orff's scenic cantata of the lyrical texts of the Latin poet Catullus.^[16] Montréal critics praised him especially in roles created for him in a balletic modern idiom by Fernand Nault. Three works with religious and spiritual references were Gehenne (1965), Cérémonie (1972), and Cantique des Cantiques (Song of Songs, 1974).^[17] In Gehenne set to music by Alvin Etler and named for a biblical place of extreme suffering, Warren was able to express his deep grief at the death of New York City poet Frank O'Hara, the "love of his life," who died after a vehicle accident on a Fire Island beach in the summer of 1966.^[18] (Warren had been the addressee of O'Hara's poem, "Having a Coke with You."^[19]) In Cérémonie, a rock mass that recalls Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting of the Last Supper of Jesus, and Cantique des Cantiques, inspired by the biblical Song of Solomon, celebrating sexual love, Warren drew upon his fundamental artistic vision: to give meaning to movement.^[20]