Royal Winnipeg Ballet's former director dies

Arnold Spohr, the former artistic director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, who turned a struggling company into an international force in the dance world, has died.

Spohr, 86, had long suffered from several ailments and died early Monday in Winnipeg, said Andre Lewis, the current artistic director.

Spohr's life was all about the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Lewis said.

"And it wasn't about self-aggrandizement," he said. "It wasn't about himself."

Spohr was born in the community of Rhein, in eastern Saskatchewan, but moved to Manitoba with his family at a young age.

Often referred to as one of the most respected and best-loved figures in Canadian ballet, he is credited with turning the Winnipeg company from a small Prairie ballet troupe into an internationally acclaimed performing arts ensemble.

He was a dancer with the company from 1945 to 1954, when it was primarily known as the Winnipeg Ballet.

In 1953, the company was granted permission to call itself the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, becoming the first royal ballet outside England in the Commonwealth.

Revived the company

When Spohr was appointed artistic director in 1958 — a post he held until 1988 — the once-proud ballet company had become a shambles.

In fact, the company had gone out of business four years earlier, when fire destroyed its offices, studios, sets and costumes, none of which were insured.

Spohr had high ambitions for the ballet and helped it regain its vitality through innovative productions, famously characterized by one arts critic as "Prairie freshness."

In 1964, New York Herald Tribune critic Walter Terry called the Winnipeg company "one of the most engaging ballet groups functioning on this side of the Atlantic."

At Spohr's insistence, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet also launched its own school in 1962 and in 1970 created a separate professional training division.

In 1970, Spohr was made an officer of the Order of Canada and was named a companion in 2003. In 2000, he was awarded the Order of Manitoba.