In order to honour this historical milestone to its fullest potential, we need your help! If you have a fond, funny, candid or interesting memory about RWB, we want to hear about it.

We welcome anecdotes from the Winnipeg community as well as our audiences and friends across Canada and around the world. Anyone who has had an experience with the RWB including alumni, subscribers, supporters and current and former staff and students is welcome to share their story. With your participation, our goal is to accumulate 70 stories for 70 years of excellence!

Please email stories to anniversary@rwb.org

Here are some of the stories we’ve received so far….

When I was 8 years old I was in Mrs. Forrest’s grade five class at Dundas Central School. She was the sort of teacher who opened windows to new experiences. One day she came to class with a special announcement. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet was coming to the Palace Theatre in Hamilton. She thought we should all go. I thought so too. I knew nothing of ballet though I loved the movies and live stage performances. My head whirled with the idea of people telling a story through movement, without words.

When I came home my mother wasn’t so sure about ballet for a little boy. “You probably won’t like it,” she said. “You don’t know anything about it.” That seemed the end of the performance for me. When Mrs. Forrest began collecting the few dollars necessary for the bus trip and the tickets to the production I felt left out. The pictures she showed us of men dancing in cowboy suits and women in dance hall garb fascinated me. So did the ones of ethereal girls in white dancing in what appeared to be a sort of blue moonlight. Not to be thwarted I went home and took three dollars from my mother’s purse. I was all set to discover the world of ballet. Of course my mother found out. Clever woman that she was she said, “Alright, if you want to go that much I’ll let you, but you must never take money from my purse again.”

The day of the trip I wore my little bow tie and white shirt and suit jacket. I felt very grown up sitting in one of the balcony seats in the lovely old theatre where I was used to watching films. Watching The Shooting of Dan McGrew with Eva von Gencsy as the lady known as Lou I was transported to some other time and place. Later watching excerpts from Swan Lake I loved the way the women in white moved almost as one. Arnold Spohr danced the Black Swan pas de deux with Eva von Gencsy. It was magical. I didn’t know who any of these people were but they seemed to have come from some other planet. I fell in love with ballet that afternoon in the old Palace Theatre. It was the beginning, in fact, of my love affair with dance. Many years later I watched a beautiful wraithlike being dance Giselle and my heart beat so hard I thought I’d faint. Of course it was the divine Evelyn Hart dancing with this same wonderful company who introduced me to the world of ballet.

Over the years I have flown to Winnipeg many times to watch the Company dance. Thinking back so many wonderful moments tumble into my consciousness. Many companies became known to me as I followed ballet around the world. But the Royal Winnipeg Ballet remained my special favorite. When I grew up I became a dance critic. Ballet had captured my heart and my soul. Imagine if the Royal Winnipeg Ballet hadn’t come to Hamilton that March day in 1953. Imagine if I had never discovered the beauty of ballet. Imagine if Mrs. Forrest hadn’t the vision to know children could be enchanted by things they never knew. Mrs. Forrest never knew what that trip meant to me. I always wanted to somehow tell her how special she was. Sadly I never did. When Mrs. Forrest died I read her obituary in the Hamilton Spectator. This was the very paper where I was now writing about dance. I never had a chance to thank her. So I’ll say it now - thank you Mrs. Forrest. And thank you Royal Winnipeg Ballet. If you hadn’t brought your special magic to Hamilton I might never have discovered one of the great loves of my life.

- Gary Smith, Theatre and Dance Critic, The Hamilton Spectator

It all began on a streetcar ride into downtown Winnipeg. My mother, Stella Adams, turned to me and asked if I would like to take dancing lessons. I had seen, with my sister Joy, all of the Fred Astaire movies, but had never tried to copy his movements. I was a watcher. My response to the questions was, “yup”. The year was 1938 and the wheels were in motion.

Winter arrived and I had all but forgotten about the question, but, the phone calls had been made and I was to go to the seventh floor of the Times Building on a Saturday afternoon. My mother took me and when we arrived an English woman told me to get changed. Changed? Into what? I was dressed for winter in Winnipeg. I was then led into a room that faced Portage Avenue. The room had sticks fastened to the wall. The English woman introduced herself as Miss Betty Hey, and then introduced us to Miss Lloyd who was sitting at the desk over in the corner. We were then lined up against the wall, holding on to the sticks and began learning several steps and did some moves in the centre of the room. At the end, each of us had to step forward and give our names. Then I went home.

Nothing happened for a very long time until finally a phone call came. I had mumbled my name when I was at the Times Building and they thought I was David Allen. No such person could be found so they went through the phone book calling names beginning with ‘A’. They finally found me and I became a member of The Winnipeg Ballet Club. My regular Saturday afternoon classes began and I was the only boy in a room full of young girls all dressed in pink leggings. Not long after beginning those classes we were told that we would be dancing in a performance to celebrate the arrival of King George and his Queen in Winnipeg. In addition to my classes I began attending rehearsals during the week. Thus, with performances of The Winnipeg Ballet Club in two ballets, Kilowatt Magic and Grain at the Playhouse Theatre in May 1939, my life in the ballet world began.

- David Adams, RWB alumni

In 1968 the RWB toured Russia. Most of the company were extremely sick, to the point that a bottle of chalk-like medicine was passed around to help the dancers make it through a performance without having to hit the bathroom. Arnold Spohr’s solution was to put buckets in each wing for people to throw up into. “I put a bucket in each wing!” became one of his boasts.

To add insult to injury, an agreement between the company manager and the Russian impresario meant that the dancers were paid half their salary in Rubles, which was a “soft” currency and meant that we had to spend it in Russia, as it was useless in Canada. We did not discover this until we were in Russia. Most of the dancers came back with cheesy Russian souvenirs sold in the tourist shops. My wife and I still have a Russian doll and some silver-plated tea glass holders. The fact that we had been in Paris (which was incredibly expensive) before we reached Russia made the "Rublegate" situation even worse.

The physical illnesses made it intolerable.

If you look at the 40 years film you will see some pretty grim faces as they arrive back in Winnipeg after their “triumphal European tour.” This is not to say it was all bad. In fact it was, and still remains the most intense experience of our lives.

- Paul Blakey, Nicola Betts, RWB alumni 1966/1969

In 1963 at the age of 12, I attended my first summer session of The Banff School of Fine Arts, where Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally were the co-directors of the dance division. Many times during that summer I sat in the doorway of the Solarium dance studio watching Brian Macdonald create, for the first time, the ballet Aimez-vous Bach? I could not know then that the ballet would become a signature piece of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, nor that I would one day perform it many times as a Company member. However, what I did know was that I was totally captivated by the program that Miss Lloyd and Mrs Farrally created in Banff. They were dedicated, professional, demanding... and somehow made all of us feel that what we were doing was terribly important. Under their influence, I not only wanted to dance, I wanted to be the best dancer and not just anywhere either. As far as I was concerned, there was only one ballet company to dance with -- THEIR company, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

In 1969 my dreams of becoming a dancer started to materialize. I had been invited by Arnold Spohr to join the professional training program for the RWB, and in September my parents drove me to Winnipeg to start my adventure. In my imagination, the RWB studios would resemble the pillared edifice like the Bolshoi Ballet Theatre pictured in one of my dance books. On arrival in Winnipeg, I was keen with anticipation to find the studio immediately. My parents drove the car down Smith Street and suddenly my mother called out – “There it is!” I looked out the window and all I saw was a rough little blue door. Sadly, I realized that my fantasy dance studio had nothing to do with reality.

The next day I set off to the studio to investigate for myself. I climbed the two flights of stairs up to the studios and immediately I heard Bach music. “I know that piece”, I said to myself. It was the Bach Concerto. I couldn’t believe it -- they were rehearsing Aimez-vous Bach?. Dancers flew out the door of the studio, raced down the hallway, making a ‘crossover’ to enter the far door of the studio for their next entrance. I almost bumped into Ana Maria de Goriz as she made one those frantic dashes. In the studio I caught a glimpse of the handsome Richard Rutherford, and the exquisite Christine Hennessy. I knew at that moment, I was in the right place. This was not the Bolshoi; it was something far better. I recognized the energy that I had experienced in my summers with Gweneth and Betty. It all felt so familiar – this was my ballet company.

- Patti Ross Milne, RWB alumni

At the old Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg, our at home performance space prior to the Centennial Concert Hall, the musicians were kept in the boiler room before the performances. On the evening of the premiere of Peter Darrell's Mayerling, set to forty minutes of Faure music, the conductor, Claude Kenneson, asked me to tell the orchestra players that it was time to take their places in the pit. The door to the boiler room was extremely heavy to open, and was at the top of a flight of steps. When I pushed on it, I slipped and fell down the steps, badly spraining my right ankle above my pedal foot. Included in the music for Mayerling was the Faure Ballade, an extremely difficult 15 minute work for solo piano and orchestra whichIhad never before performed in public, and had just finished learning in the previous week. My ankle swelled up immediately to an enormous size, and was dreadfully painful, but I had to play, so with the help of Fred Strobel who turned pages for me and a tensor bandage borrowed from Richard Rutherford, I got through the evening.

- Sylvia Hunter, RWB Principal Pianist 1960-67

We were travelling East by train and Gweneth Lloyd and David Yedeau were meeting us at Union Station in Toronto. About half way to Toronto there was a derailment and we waited four or five hours while it was fixed, and then we proceeded. That was when we decided to play a joke on Gweneth Lloyd. We would pretend to be injured. This is what we did: Jean McKenzie had her arm in a sling, someone removed their false tooth, John Waks wrapped a scarf around his head, several fastened band aids on their faces, Reg Hawe limped, in fact, several limped a bit. This was how we got off the train. We took one look at Gweneth and realized that she was in shock. So we decided not to carry it any further. I went up to Miss Lloyd and said no one is hurt. David Yeddeau said we’ll sue. At which point I told the others to take their bandages off, the joke’s over. Finally, Gweneth Lloyd smiled and said, “You little devils.”

- Joan Johnston (Chasney), RWB alumni

Finishing up one of our famous Huroks tours we were coming up to our last date in Hampton, Connecticut. It was a bad overnight trip, the radiator boiled over, the generator wouldn’t start and we had a dead battery. By the time we changed it, it was nearly 4:30 a.m. when we finally got to bed. We told our driver to go right to the theatre and wake us at 11:00 a.m. for the take-in. The next thing I remember was our driver saying, “Quick everyone get out! The campers on fire, I’m going to get an extinguisher.” No one moved until someone came running in with a fire extinguisher and screamed, “GET OUT, this campers on fire!” Then of course we all ran out in our underwear shorts. It was mid-January and we were on the New York turnpike. After the fire was extinguished we went back in and got what was left of our clothes and belongings. I went and rented a van which we all climbed in to and drove to Hampton and made the curtain call – just in time.

- Doug King, former RWB Master Carpenter

A performance in Ottawa in the early sixties comes under the heading of ”things I would rather not remember". So why am I writing about it? Perhaps it shows how far we have come since those early pioneer days, or maybe it proves that we always stick to the old cliché, "the show must go on." We were staying in a hotel in downtown Ottawa, but the "theatre" was a high school auditorium on the outskirts of the city. Since the conductor and I did not need to be at the school that day as early as the dancers, it was arranged that we would drive out later with another member of the company. This proved to be a poor decision. First of all, we were in a traffic accident along the way, which delayed our arrival to the point where there was no time to try the piano before the performance. I use the word piano loosely, as this instrument (in spite of considerable competition) definitely wins the title of all-time worst I have ever encountered! It had been brought in from the screened-in porch of a golf club where it had been subjected to the elements. Its coat of gray paint was chipped and peeling. The music rack had long since disappeared, the pedals didn't work, and many of the ivories were broken, chipped or missing. In "Pas de Dix", the lead female solo was being danced by Sonia Taverner. As fate would have it, this music was in the key of A minor, with a good percentage of the melody notes being A. I started to play, and to my dismay found that the A didn't sound. I jumped up an octave to a higher A with the same result, then down an octave. The same thing happened! The end result was that Sonia danced her solo almost in silence.

- Sylvia Hunter, RWB principle pianist from 1960 - 1967

The early days of my time in Winnipeg are very vivid. The year was 1955; we were met at the CNR railway station by John Piasecki who at the time was the publicist for the company. That evening, I met Margaret Piasecki who was to become a lifelong friend; they were proud parents of their new baby daughter Mia. In the next few days, the kindness and efforts to find us somewhere to live by Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally was amazing. This was the beginning of my strong impression of the kindness of the people of the ballet and Winnipeg. Lady Tupper and Sir Charles Tupper who had been largely responsible for our coming to Winnipeg opened their home and hearts to us. We were introduced to many well known people in Winnipeg in their home and so life began in this great city. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is a part of the fibre of Winnipeg and I am sure the company’s success mirrors the bonding with the people in the community. May this continue for many years to come.

- Jill Lhotka

I have many, many happy memories of the coast to coast tours with the RWB. In fact those experiences shaped my career into something I'd have never dared to even dream. We worked hard and played hard, often enjoying cook ups provided by Walter Bourke in hotel rooms. Dashing out to shop when we had a moment to spare, and grabbing some sleep on the bus when possible. It taught me that if I could dance my way across North America on one night stands I could do anything. My life has been blessed with wonderful opportunities not only to dance but also as a teacher and coach. My position as Classical Teacher to the Graduate Girls at The Royal Ballet Upper School in London provides me with daily fulfillment; the rewards from teaching continue to nourish and engage me.

- Petal Miller Ashmole

At the small Jacob's Pillow theatre there was no room for the two pianos below the stage on the auditorium floor, so they were placed in the wings. This probably saved the day at the first performance. The opening ballet was Arnold Spohr's "Ballet Premiere", set to the Mendelssohn G minor piano concerto. The music had been shipped in a trunk with pointe shoes and other things, and as I began to play I realized with horror that glue had leaked onto the music and the top corner of all the pages were stuck together. I told Fred Strobel who was waiting by the piano to make his entrance, and he quickly spread the word among the dancers and organized things so that as each dancer made their entrance or exit they separated as many of the pages as time allowed. We made it to the end without catastrophe!

- Sylvia Hunter, RWB principle pianist from 1960 – 1967

In December, 1960, the RWB was celebrating its 21st Anniversary. Olga Moiseeva and Askold Makarov from Russia’s Leningrad Ballet Company were guest artists. They performed excerpts from Swan Lake and Don Quixote Pas de Deux. I had the principal role of the New Girl in Gweneth Lloyds’s ballet Finishing School. Making my exit doing a simple glissade jete I jammed my foot into a cable on the floor. I heard a snap but didn’t realize anything was wrong until I went to put rosin on my pointe shoes. My left foot was hanging like a wet rag. I was unable to point it. There was no time to think about it. I was supposed to be back on stage to do a pas de deux with my partner Richard Rutherford. Not knowing if he knew I was injured, I whispered to him that I had hurt my leg. He whispered "Which one?". I answered back in a state of shock "I don’t know ". Somehow we finished that section, and exited to the wings. My ankle had begun to swell and I knew I couldn’t continue. Someone hollered to Sheila Mackinnon who was my alternate to get up on stage. She only had time to put her costume on, but not the headdress. Except for my husband and father, the audience didn’t even notice that the ballet ended not with a brunette dancing, but a red-head!

- Marilyn Young Marshall, former RWB dancer

The Company was in Spokane, Washington on tour performing and Earl Stafford was playing the piano. At one point as the dancers did their individual solos one of them came off in the wing and said how rude the audience was as they were almost running from the balcony during the dance! At the end of the performance Earl came off stage and explained what had happened. Mt. St. Helen had erupted in the midst of the performance. His music fell from the piano and the balcony was shaking – thus people were leaving very quickly not knowing what was happening!

- Doug King, former RWB Master Carpenter

When I was a child, we spent every Christmas with Constance Officer ("Sindie"),Wardrobe Mistress in the 50's and 60's, who would regale us with stories of life on tour with the RWB. The one I recall most vividly was the crisis that occurred during a performance when a dancer split the posterior seam of a verysnug pair of tights. As the dancer had to go back on stage immediately, there was no time for a change, or for stitches. Sindie, ready with her trustycan of white paint, administered a broad swath to the offending posterior just in time for the dancer's next (one supposes, rather breezy) entrance.

- Carman Bradford

During the 1955/56 Royal Winnipeg Ballet tour of Western Canada, Marina Katronis and I danced the Don Quixote pas de deux in, I believe, Lethbridge Alberta. All went well with the performance and we took our initial curtain calls. I then proceeded to the wings to collect her bouquet, in this case a bunch of very large bright yellow chrysanthemums. After presenting it to her we then backed up to allow the curtain to close. Just as we started back, a large light came crashing down from the flies, landing just where we’d been taking our bows. Miss Katronis, understandably, gave a startled shriek and clutched her bouquet to her bosom. At this point all the chrysanthemum heads fell off and the yellow petals fluttered down to join the light on stage. Poor Marina was left with a bundle of sticks and I was left trying to decide whether to laugh or cry as mercifully the curtain finally closed.

- Paddy McIntyre, RWB alumni

The year was about 1994 and this happened during “Placement Day” for the RWB summer school. In those days, RWB held summer school on the University of Manitoba campus at Tache Hall. The Tache Hall gymnasium is a relic from the 1930’s, hot and un-air-conditioned and it featured a running track above the gym floor. Proud parents lined the upper track that day watching their ballerina aspirants below as they were put through their paces. David Moroni the much respected Principal of the school was every inch in charge of the proceedings as young girls and boys with dreams of dancing showed what they had. Our daughter Daiva Preston was among the most nervous of the children. Daiva had only recently been accepted into Professional Division training at RWB and she was of course a teenager who wished her parents weren’t there in the first place. It was a hot day and I dangled my feet over the edge of the upper track, languidly watching the spectacle below. I was wearing no socks, just a pair of comfortable loafers. Daiva from below gave me a signal that I should remove my shoes lest a catastrophe happen. I got the message and removed the shoes, carefully placing them beside me. Somehow as I re-adjusted myself to a more comfortable position one of the shoes got bumped. It fell ending with a loud thump 20 feet below and narrowly missing Mr. Moroni. There was stunned silence throughout the gym as Mr. Moroni picked up the shoe in a manner very suggestive of hurling it back at the perpetrator…me. Moroni’s eyes met mine and he hesitated for just an instant. After all I was an adult about his age and not one of the students who needed to be reminded of their place in the scheme of things. I blurted out the only response I could think of in that brief moment; “I’m Daiva’s Dad”. There was snickering and outright laughter as many eyes turned toward our daughter, a totally mortified Daiva Preston.

Somehow Daiva and I overcame what became to be known in our family as “the shoe incident”. Daiva eventually graduated from the professional division at RWB despite the humiliation that day. Daiva enjoyed a career of several years with the Company and then went on to Tulsa Ballet where she danced for several more years before retiring from dance to become Company Manager.

- Brian Preston

A few months ago I saw the Royal Winnipeg Ballet: 40 Years of One Night Stands and found it most exciting as it brought back fond memories of that fall evening in 1951 at the Winnipeg Civic Auditorium when I was fortunate enough to attend the Royal Command Performance of the Winnipeg Ballet. As an eight year-old, I was truly excited at the thought of seeing a "real live princess" as well as witness for the first time, a performance by a professional dance company. What a thrill it was to see Princess Elizabeth arrive in her shiny yellow gown with white fur coat, bedecked in jewels and a diamond crown upon her head. Prince Phillip was equally handsome! As I recall, it was rather like watching a tennis match as my head would turn from the dancers on stage (Arnold Spohr, Eva von Gencsy and others) to the royal couple. Audience members were dressed very formally,with ladies in evening gowns, and I was quite excited to be wearing my first floor-length powder blue satin gown, which in fact, was one of my dance costumes. On my head was a rhinestone tiara and the lady seated beside me commented, "My! You have a diamond tiara like the Princess." Of course, I believed her as a youngster would not likely know the difference between diamonds and rhinestones! That lady was Gweneth Lloyd and the lady beside her who spoke to me about "how pretty you look" was Betty Farrally. My mother, who was an accompanist for Mary Strome's Dance Studio, would occasionally play at the Winnipeg Ballet and I presume that is how we happened to be seated beside the two ladies from England who started the Winnipeg Ballet. What a thrill it must have been for these two ladies when two years later, Queen Elizabeth II granted her first Royal Title to the city's ballet company. What a glorious history the Royal Winnipeg Ballet has had in the past 70 years! Long may you continue to enthrall your audiences around the world. Congratulations! Thank you for the memories!

- Morna-June Morrow

Soon after moving to Winnipeg in 1984, I heard a rave review about the RWB's Giselle on CBC radio's morning show. That evening I decided to try to attend. Within one hour I drove downtown, parked free of charge, purchased a last minute ticket for about $12 and climbed into a seat in the back row of the second balcony just as the orchestra was tuning. A few minutes later my impulse decision was rewarded with world class music as Evelyn Hart floated onto the stage accompanied by wonderful dancers. As I made my way back to my house that night, I knew I had found my home after wandering and working around the world. Here, in Winnipeg, was world class culture accessible in time, money and presentation. Thank you RWB, I have loved living in Winnipeg for 25 years now, enjoying the many advantages this city offers including the great variety of cultural activities.

- Lea Stogdale

I began taking dance classes in the old building at 289 Portage Ave. My first class was jazz ballet with Jacques Lemay in the 1980’s. What can I say; I enjoyed the class so much that I eventually signed up to dance two to three times a week in the evening. Ballet was then added to my repertoire of dance with Johanne Gingras (PD/TC teacher) being one of my first ballet teachers. (Another amazing teacher!) One of the benefits of taking classes at 289 Portage Ave was having the opportunity to watch Arnold Spohr, Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine and the other company members working in the large studio.There is nothing like being up close and personal and it was a very memorable experience. I soon became an annual season ticket holder.As my love for dance and the RWB continued to grow I signed up as a volunteer and worked in the boutique. Shortly thereafter a position became available in the Professional Division School office which eventually brought me to my current position within the company – Assistant to the Artistic Staff. Who would have thought that after taking classes at the RWB that I would eventually work with them and get to know them personally. What a journey this has been.

- Judy Arnason

I had been at the ballet only once as a child but the memory of a wonderful and magical experience stayed with me long afterwards and into adulthood. When my own daughter reached the 13-14 age group and was into the grunge style of dressing -oversized pant’s and sloppy tops- I decided she needed some ‘class’ in her life. I bought season tickets to the ballet and she and I would go together. The fights we had over what she thought was proper dressy attire for the ballet and what I did were horrendous. I can’t count how many times I sent her back to her room to change. The screaming and yelling between us often lasted until we walked into the front door of the concert hall. But we never missed a performance. Even though we only held season tickets for two years the ballet helped mold her into the wonderful woman she is today. Little did I know she was the envy of her girlfriends! Years later when I found out, we attended the ballet with a couple of the girls and their mothers. Now I can’t wait until my granddaughter is old enough to take to the ballet!

- Wendi Foreman

The theme of the Annual Gala Fundraiser in April 2003 held at the Delta Hotel was ‘Dancing through Time’. It was a celebration of groundbreaking ballets introduced during Arnold Spohr’s 30 years as artistic Director. The program included Evelyn Hart’s interpretation of The Dying Swan and the bed scene from The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. Many members of the Alumni, including myself, were in attendance. The organizing committee decided to create centerpieces for each table using red ballet pointe shoes. The job of sewing red ribbons on each and every shoe fell on the shoulders of Gina Morham. Even to this day she still has memories of the task she volunteered to undertake. Immediately following the event Margaret Piasecki phoned me about the shoes. She knew that I was involved in collecting used pointe shoes and slippers for ballet students in Cuba and suggested that she ask the gala organizers to donate them for that purpose. An agreement was reached and shortly afterwards I received a box of red shoes. In January 2004 I returned to Cuba carrying the shoes in one of my bags. At the studio of the Cuban National Ballet I handed the shoes over to Miriam Villa whom I had first met when she worked at Centro Pro Danza alongside of Laura Alonso, the director. The following evening I attended a performance of the National Ballet of Cuba. The first ballet of the evening was ’Red Shoes’ and as one might expect from the title, all the girls danced in red shoes. At the intermission Miriam rushed to my seat. “Did you see the shoes?” she asked. “They were all wearing the new red shoes you brought from Winnipeg.” Leaving the theatre I felt the red shoes represented a kind of spiritual bond between the two ballet companies to which I feel a strong attachment.

- Bill Hutton, RWB alumni

In 1974, Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from Russia as a member of the Kirov Ballet during its Canadian tour. Following his defection, the first ballet troupe that he performed with was the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. At a reception following Baryshnikov’s first Winnipeg performance, I recall Marnie Marshall, former principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, commenting “if you blinked you missed a move that you have never seen before”. I had the privilege of meeting Baryshnikov at this reception. He was with an interpreter and I congratulated him on his performance. Then, searching for some common ground, I remembered there was a Russia/Canada hockey series taking place at the time. I asked him if he was a hockey fan. He replied in almost perfect English, with no input from his interpreter, “Yes and there is some great hockey being played by Canada and Russia”.

- Peter Macdonald, former RWB Board member

In the mid 1980’s my husband and I were on a trip through the Orient at the same time that the RWB was touring there. At one point during our trip we joined the former Mayor of Winnipeg Bill Norrie and his wife on a visit to Japan. We had planned it so we would be there at the same time the RWB would be performing Giselle. In the audience was Prince Akihito of Japan and the Canadian Ambassador to Japan. The performance was outstanding. Evelyn Hart danced the lead role of Giselle and the audience loved her. The Company outdid themselves that evening and the audience was enthralled. I found myself sitting up straighter and straighter in my seat with pride as the performance continued. It was a thrill to be there and I was so excited to be a part of something like that. These are the things memories are made of.

- Dee Buchwald, RWB Honorary Council, former Board member

For our six weeks of one night stands throughout the United States, we travelled on a bright yellow bus. Our tour took us to many areas in the North East. Every stage was a challenge, whether too small or too large. In one city we were opening with Concerto and the curtains didn’t open properly. I was left on the outside dancing while everyone else was dancing away behind the curtain! When we started out on our tour, the bus was totally empty of extra bags and things; we had only brought the necessities. On our way back to Canada when we reached the border in Fargo, ND, the bus was jammed to the rafters with stuff. We were the third bus to come through that day, and the guard just took a quick look and marked everything without opening a thing and told us to go ahead. We drove forward to the outhouses where we all jumped off the bus and made a dash for them. There were five doors. We all got hysterical when we discovered there were no walls inside, just five holes. We laughed all the way home to Winnipeg.

- Charlotte (Wright) Cochrane

As a new and young member of the Volkoff Canadian Ballet in Toronto, I was honoured to attend the First Canadian Ballet Festival in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the spring of 1948. When the invitation came we were all very excited. We would travel to Winnipeg and meet dancers from across Canada. We would see them dance in ballets new to us, and they would see our ballets. At that time I lived with my parents in the country east of Toronto and we did not have a telephone. On the Monday evening before the festival my parents drove me to the Union Station in Toronto. The only person there to meet us was Margie Clemens, our pianist, who had bad news—the Winnipeg theatre had been condemned because of the floods. We joined the rest of our dance group at Boris Volkoff’s studio where the sorrow was tangible. Yet, the Winnipeg Ballet people were searching for another place. They were successful in finding a movie house, the Odeon (now called the Burton Cummings Theatre), laying a floor and getting everything ready over the next few days so that the three performances could happen.

A letter I wrote my parents reminds me that we arrived “four hours late on Thursday, were sent to our billets, and told to be at the studio at 4 pm for a class with Mr. Volkoff. Some of the Winnipeg dancers joined us for a very hard lesson.” We were billetted in private homes. My friend, Connie, and I stayed in a home on Wellington Crescent very near where I now live.

The Festival was such a wonderful opportunity to meet, talk with and watch other dancers from Winnipeg and Montreal. We spent all our time in the theatre rehearsing, performing and watching each other. The hosts, the Winnipeg Ballet performed Chapter 13 and Etude. Ruth Sorel’s Modern Dance Group did Biographie Dansee, Promethian Heritage, Three Miniatures and Capriccio Espagnole. Our ballets were Classical Symphony, The Big Top, Rosenkavalier Waltzes, In the Park and the Polovetzian Dances from Prince Igor. After the final performance there was a party. On arrival I noticed that a male dancer from the Sorel group (one whom we younger dancers had been admiring) was about to lose the carnation on his lapel. I went over and pushed it back in his button hole. As I rejoined my friends he tapped me on the shoulder, bowed and handed me his flower. I kept that carnation for many years and it became one of my symbols of the First Canadian Ballet Festival. My other symbol is an autograph book in which I have most everyone’s signature. This I still treasure. Since we didn’t leave until Sunday evening and the dancing was over, we had a drive through the city. About Winnipeg I wrote “Everyone is so friendly that we feel right at home. Winnipeg is a wonderful city. There are no terribly high buildings and the streets are so lovely and wide.” The Festivals continued and were held in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. I danced in all of them.

- Barbara Cook