Royal Winnipeg Ballet

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is one of the world's premier dance companies. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, it is Canada's oldest ballet company and the longest continuously operating ballet company in North America.

History

It was founded in 1939 as the "Winnipeg Ballet Club" by Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally. The name was changed to the "Winnipeg Ballet" in 1941 and the company began touring Canada in 1945. In 1948, with the initiative of the Winnipeg Ballet, the Canadian Ballet Festival was formed.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet was granted its royal title in 1953, the first granted under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It completed its first American tour in 1954. In June that year the RWB's rented premises were devastated by fire; the company's entire stock of costumes, original music, choreographic scores and sets was destroyed. Conductor Eric Wild served as the company's music director from 1955 to 1962.

The company solidified its reputation under the artistic directorship of Saskatchewan-born Arnold Spohr from 1958 to 1988. Spohr, who first joined the company as a dancer in 1945, during his tenure maintained a strong focus on developing Canadian talent, and, at the same time, he developed the RWB as an international touring company, and actively engaged with choreographers and dancers from around the world to expand the ballet.

Winnipeg

Winnipeg (ⁱ/ˈwɪnɪpɛɡ/) is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba, Canada. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers.

The name "Winnipeg" comes from the Western Cree words for Lake Winnipeg nearby, referring to muddy or brackish water, or possibly the natural colour of the Red River that flowed into the southern basin of the lake. The region was a trading centre for aboriginal peoples long before the arrival of Europeans. French traders built the first fort on the site in 1738. A settlement was later founded by the Selkirk settlers of the Red River Colony in 1812, the nucleus of which was incorporated as the City of Winnipeg in 1873. As of 2011, Winnipeg is the seventh most populated municipality in Canada.

Known as the "Gateway to the West", Winnipeg is a railway and transportation hub with a diversified economy. This multicultural city hosts numerous annual festivals, including the Festival du Voyageur, the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Jazz Winnipeg Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, and Folklorama. Winnipeg was the first Canadian host of the Pan American Games. It is home to several professional sports franchises, including the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (Canadian football), the Winnipeg Jets (ice hockey), Manitoba Moose (ice hockey) and the Winnipeg Goldeyes (baseball).

Ballet

Ballet /ˈbæleɪ/ (French: [balɛ]) is a type of performance dance that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread, highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary based on French terminology. It has been globally influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres. Becoming a ballet dancer requires years of training. Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures to evolve the art.

Ballet may also refer to a ballet dance work, which consists of the choreography and music for a ballet production. A well-known example of this is The Nutcracker, a two-act ballet that was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a music score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained artists. Many classical ballets are performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, though there are exceptions to this. Most notably, American choreographer George Balanchine is known for his plotless neoclassical ballets which are often performed in simple leotards and tights without scenery.

The Royal

The Royal is a British medical drama series produced by ITV that ran from 2003 to 2011. The show comprised one-hour episodes which were normally first aired on ITV in the Sunday early evening slot.

The title of the series refers to the fictional "St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital", located in Elsinby, a fictional rural seaside town, portrayed as being close to Aidensfield, the fictional setting of the UK TV series Heartbeat. The series was shot in Whitby and Scarborough, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The Royal is an NHS hospital serving the local town, countryside and visitors. The show was set in the 1960s. It began as a spin-off from another popular ITV show set in North Yorkshire, Heartbeat.

Stars of the show included Ian Carmichael, Wendy Craig, Robert Daws, and Amy Robbins. The last episode of the show aired at 7.00 pm on Sunday, 31 July 2011 on ITV.

Overview

The Royal was introduced in the 14th episode of the 12th series of Heartbeat entitled 'Out Of The Blue' and The Royal benefited from this connection to the extremely popular parent series; several Heartbeat characters appeared in the first couple of series of The Royal, most notably Bill Maynard as a bed-ridden Claude Greengrass, but as the series progressed it generally dropped its character crossovers with Heartbeat to become its own entity.

Royal

Royal may refer to:

Places

United States

Elsewhere

Schools

Companies