Celia Franca

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Celia Franca as Giselle in the ballet "Giselle", The National ballet of Canada, 1956-1957 season
Celia Franca as Giselle in the ballet "Giselle", The National ballet of Canada, 1956-1957 season

Celia Franca, CC (June 25, 1921 – February 19, 2007) was the founder of The National Ballet of Canada (1951) and its artistic director for 24 years ([1]).

Born in London, England, she began to study dance at the age of 4 and was a scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Dance. In 1941, aged 20, she was recognized as one of the finest dramatic ballerinas in the Sadler's Wells company. In 1947 she joined the Metropolitan Ballet as a soloist and ballet mistress. It was there that she began choreographing for television, creating the first two ballets -Eve of St. Agnes and Dance of Salomé - ever commissioned by the BBC.

In 1950, a group of Toronto balletomanes asked Franca to start a Canadian classical company. A determined woman who thrived on challenges, she did the impossible in only 10 months - while supporting herself as a file clerk at Eaton's department store, she recruited and trained dancers, staged some Promenade Concerts, organized a summer school, gathered a talented artistic staff and whipped her uneven but enthusiastic new company into shape for its opening on November 12, 1951.

She and Betty Oliphant founded the National Ballet School of Canada in 1959 to provide exceptional dancers for the Company. During her years with the National Ballet and since her retirement, Celia was recognized at home and abroad.

In 1978 Celia Franca, Merrilee Hodgins and Joyce Shietze opened The School of Dance in Ottawa as a nationally registered, educational, charitable, non-profit organization designed to provide professional training for dance.

Celia lived in Ottawa and, among many commitments, was a Co-Artistic Director of The School of Dance, a member of the board of governors of York University and the board of directors of the Canada Council and later served on the Board of Directors for the Canada Dance Festival Society.

Celia continued her association with the National Ballet, revising works for the Company such as Offenbach in the Underworld (1983) and staging The Nutcracker. She returned to the Company to produce a 35th Anniversary Gala Performance at Toronto's O'Keefe Centre.

In 1967, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1985.

For the past year she had been in poor health after breaking vertebrae in her back. She died on February 19, 2007, aged 85, in an Ottawa Hospital.

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