art & dance

On February 21, 2010, during the Vancouver Olympic Games, Alberta Culture, the Canadian Sport Centre, Winsport Canada and the Alberta Ballet hosted a gala evening entiltled “An Evening Collective: Our Heroes and Stars” in which the Canadian Sport Heroes Collection was exhibited.

During the course of the evening, Alberta Minister of Culture Lindsay Blackett announced that Alberta Culture, in conjunction with the Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat and the Cultural Olympiad, was commissioning two new paintings from artist Gordon Milne.

1. Portrait of 2010 Olympic Curling Gold Medalist Kevin Martin.

2. Cultural piece honouring the Alberta Ballet, their involvement in the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympic Games as well as their cultural impact in Alberta, throughout Canada and worldwide.

Sonia Rodriguez was born in Toronto, Ontario. She moved to Madrid, Spain, at age five and received dance training there with Pedro de la Cruz and also at the> Princess Grace Academy in Monaco. In 1989, at an international competition in Capri, Rodriguez won the Enrico Cecchetti award, and the following year she returned to Canada to join the National Ballet of Canada.

Rodriguez was promoted to second soloist in 1995, became first soloist in 1997 and danced the lead role in the Canadian premiere of The Red Shoes in the Karen Kain Farewell Tour. Rodriguez became a principal dancer in 2000 and in 2005, Suzanne Farrell chose her to dance the lead role of Dulcinea in the world premiere of her re-staging of George Balanchine's Don Quixote at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Rodriguez is married to Canadian figure skater, Kurt Browning.

frank augustyn