Reasons to Love Toronto 2014: #12. Because Guillaume Found Heather

Reasons to Love Toronto 2014: #12. Because Guillaume Found Heather

Reasons to Love Toronto 2014: #12. Because Guillaume Found Heather
(Image: Marlee Maclean/Roots Canada)

Guillaume Côté and Heather Ogden so fully embody the romance of ballet that they may well have hatched from a life-size Fabergé egg. The couple met at the National Ballet School when they were teens. They started dating in 2006 and married in  2010—their Instagrams capture starry-eyed beach strolls and ­Valentine’s ­celebrations over pizza and House of Cards, and their real-life romance seeps into their stage roles. Côté leaps and lunges with the controlled energy of a flexed piano string. He’s also a promising choreographer—he’s created several short pieces, including one for Ogden called Lost in Motion II, and will debut his first full-length ballet, based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, in 2016. Ogden is the quintessential fairy princess: so lithe, light and elegant that she practically floats across the stage. When Côté and Ogden dance together, they generate an electricity that thrums all the way up to the fifth ring.