Celia Franca – 2024 Inductee
2024 Hall of fame inductee
CELIA FRANCA, C.C.
Celia Franca was born in London, England in 1921. She began her ballet studies at age 4 and was a scholarship student at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Dancing. She performed with Ballet Rambert before joining Dame Ninette de Valois’s Sadler’s Wells Ballet (now The Royal Ballet) in 1941, followed by the Metropolitan Ballet in 1947. It was there that she began choreographing for television, creating the first two ballets ever commissioned by the BBC, The Eve of St. Agnes and Dance of Salome. Celia was invited to attend the 1950 Canadian Ballet Festival in Montreal under the pretext that she would return in 1951 to set up a national ballet company. In just 10 months, Celia conducted a national audition tour, recruited and rehearsed dancers, assembled an artistic staff, and staged The National Ballet of Canada’s inaugural performance at Toronto’s Eaton Auditorium on November 12, 1951.
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As Artistic Director, Celia pursued high levels of artistry, innovation, and growth. She built the repertoire with venerable classical ballets, collaborated with contemporary choreographers such as Antony Tudor and John Cranko, toured internationally, and brought in accomplished guest artists including Lynn Seymour, Erik Bruhn, and Rudolf Nureyev. Over the course of her tenure, she commissioned and acquired more than 30 Canadian ballets and started the Choreographic Workshops that still nurture Canadian creative talent today. Much of this she accomplished in the face of financial hardship. In 1959, Celia co-founded Canada’s National Ballet School with Betty Oliphant.
