Frank Augustyn partnered Karen Kain, among other greats. Now, the dance legend is getting his due with a new honour

Frank Augustyn would sometimes jokingly introduce himself as the man standing behind Karen Kain but, as ballet fans of the 1970s and ‘80s will vividly recall, the Hamilton-born dancer was always much more than the famous ballerina’s favourite partner, the male half of the fabled “Gold Dust Twins.”
Augustyn was an internationally acclaimed star in his own right, among the finest classical ballet dancers Canada has ever produced and an inspiration and role model for those aspiring to follow in his footsteps. This weekend he officially becomes a part of living history as an inductee into Canada’s Dance Hall of Fame.
Augustyn, 71, is among 13 dance luminaries who will be honoured at a Nov. 10 gala at the Palais Royale. The event, held annually since 2018, is under the auspices of Toronto-based Dance Collection Dance, an organization dedicated to preserving Canada’s rich and diverse dance heritage. 
In some respects, the event is a symbolic homecoming for Augustyn.
Although he has periodically visited his homeland as a guest teacher — or, as in 2003, to receive his third honorary doctorate — for the past 24 years, he was based in Garden City, New York as a professor of dance at Adelphi University, helping build the department he headed into a highly respected institution.
Augustyn retired last May and this summer he and his wife, fellow ballet teacher Carolyn Zettel-Augustyn, originally from the Waterloo area, settled into a new home in Saint John, New Brunswick. Their garden looks directly onto the Bay of Fundy.
Augustyn trained at the National Ballet School. After grade 11 he quit to join the company as a corps member at age 17.
“I remember when Frank joined in 1970, lanky, diffident and sweet,” recalled former prima ballerina Veronica Tennant. “It was astonishing how he metamorphized in front of our eyes.”
By 1973 Augustyn had risen to top principal rank, transformed from a rookie into a full-fledged ballet prince, hand-picked by the great Soviet defector, legendary ballet supernova Rudolf Nureyev, to dance the male lead in his production of “The Sleeping Beauty.”
It was the same year he and Kain won a special prize at the Moscow International Ballet Competition for their stunning performance of the technically challenging Bluebird pas de deux from the same work.
“Frank’s nickname for me was Big Bird,” remembered Kain, “because of all those Bluebirds we danced together.”
Their success in Moscow made front-page headlines across Canada and catapulted the duo into instant stardom. Honors soon rained down on them, including the Order of Canada.
“They were magic together,” said Tennant who, like most of the company’s principal ballerinas of the era, relished the opportunity to have Augustyn as their stage partner.
“He was first choice for all of us,” says Tennant.
But it was through the 1970s that fans mostly associated Augustyn with Kain. The fact that they had a rumoured and, as was later publicly revealed, actual offstage romance added a special allure to the partnership.
“Frank was an instinctive partner,” said Kain. “He could sense what you needed, when you needed it. And I can tell you there are not many like that. Frank’s musicality was truly fantastic. I think that’s why it was so easy for us to dance together because we both heard and felt the music the same way.”
Augustyn also guested with other companies, notably in Berlin and Boston, and though he danced all the major prince roles he also won acclaim for his versatility in more contemporary choreography.
He retired as a National Ballet member in 1989 and soon took on what proved to be the thankless and as it proved impossible task of resurrecting Ottawa’s foundering Theatre Ballet of Canada before refocusing his career on teaching.
“I was maybe fourteen,” Augustyn recalled. “It was right in the middle of a class and Betty Oliphant, then director of the National Ballet School, looked at me and said, ‘Frank, you are going to be a very good teacher one day.’ And, I thought, ‘who cares? I want to dance!’ It was not until years later and teaching one of my first classes that Betty’s words came back to me.”
In the mid/late 1990s, Augustyn also co-produced and hosted “Footnotes,” a widely shown and gently irreverent 20-part television series about ballet, examined from a range of perspectives.
In addition to Augustyn, this year’s inductees include internationally celebrated Quebec choreographer Marie Chouinard; former longtime Toronto Dance Theatre choreographer/artist director Christopher House; David Moroni, the former Royal Winnipeg Ballet principal dancer who as founder of the company’s professional school trained such stars as Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine; former National Ballet star and dance educator Nadia Potts and groundbreaking Black Canadian tap dancer, Joey Hollingsworth.
The contributions of such historic trailblazers as National Ballet of Canada founding artistic director Celia Franca and Betty Oliphant, founding principal of Canada’s National Ballet School — marking its 65th anniversary with an alumni gathering this weekend — are posthumously honoured this year, along with Grant Strate, founder at York of Canada’s first university dance department.
Augustyn says this latest recognition is especially meaningful for him because he knew Lawrence and Miriam Adams, the former National Ballet members who later laid the foundations for what is now Dance Collection Dance.
“Their contribution remain invaluable,” said Augustyn. “You need to know about the past in order to move forward. The art form is so ephemeral. DCD tries to capture our own dance history in any way it can.”