National Ballet Of Canada: Ballet Training

Prima Ballerina Dept: Born Oct. 8, 1929 to a poor British immigrant family in Vancouver, Smith did not begin intensive ballet training until she was 15 but with her beautiful proportions, natural facility and passion for dance made rapid progress. Within a year, while still studying with celebrated teacher Rosemary Deveson, Smith appeared at the Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park in the corps of Vancouver s popular summertime Theatre Under s, according to The Star. Their plans were put on hold when Smith became pregnant. Meanwhile, British-born dancer Celia Franca, with whom Adams had worked in London, arrived in Toronto with plans to form a national classical ballet company. Franca asked Adams to join her endeavour. He agreed on the condition Franca also hire his wife hardly recovered from the birth of daughter Janine sight unseen. Franca did, and had no reason to regret it and lois Smith, a dancer of radiant grace and refinement and the National Ballet of Canada s first homegrown prima ballerina, died at her home in Sechelt, B.C., on Saturday at 81 after a lengthy decline caused by Alzheimer s. By 1949, Smith was taking leading roles in the theatre s productions and appearing in touring musicals in the United States. In Vancouver, that summer, she met a handsome 20-year-old Canadian dancer, David Adams. The two married the following spring and, after performing successfully in musicals and night club acts, made plans pursue careers as classical ballet artists in Britain, where Adams had already danced for two years. As reported in the news.
@t classical ballet company, celia franca