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Louisville Ballet: it started with just one swan.

Article Excerpt
There was one swan and one cello; it was The Dying Swan. It could easily have turned into a wild goose chase or a dead duck, but it was the first public performance by the Louisville Ballet, on March 16, 1952. That was the beginning of the company founded and nurtured by Nancy S. Dysart, Thomas L. Jordan, and William Habich, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this month.

I first saw the company on a brilliant September day, dancing Doris Humphrey's The Shakers on a street closed to traffic for "Downtown Salutes the Arts." That must have been in the early '60s. The Canadian choreographer (and ballet master at American Ballet Theatre) Fernand Nault was then the artistic director. Fast forward to 1975--Alun Jones and Helen Start joined the company to take charge of the school, and in 1978 Jones succeeded Richard and Cristina Munro as artistic director, inheriting a group of eight "talented, hard-working, and grossly underpaid" professional dancers, he said. Jones credited the board of directors as being likewise dedicated and hard-working. "All believed it could happen," he said.

As highlights, Jones remembers the acquisition...

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