David Adams (dancer)
| David Adams | |
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David Adams as Peer Gynt
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| Born |
16 November 1928 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada |
| Died | 24 October 2007 (aged 78) Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada |
David Adams, OC (16 November 1928 – 24 October 2007) was a Canadian ballet dancer and a founding member of the National Ballet of Canada.
After his training under Gweneth Lloyd at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, David began his performing career with England's Metropolitan Ballet. Here he met Celia Franca, who would become the founding Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada. He also shared the stage with Eric Bruhn, Sonia Arova and John Taras, performing Design With Strings, Dances from Galanta and other works in a tour of Scandinavia.
He returned to Canada in 1949 and after a brief musical theatre diversion in Vancouver and California, moved to Toronto to join Celia Franca during the formative years of Canada's National Ballet. He became the company’s first principal male dancer in 1951 and remained with the company until 1963. He used his knowledge of classical dance and stagecraft to build an audience for the company, and introducing Canada's first home-grown principal ballerina, his wife Lois Smith. A brilliant amateur cinematographer, his "in-camera" videos from the 1950s are a significant part of the Celia Franca Tour De Force double DVD set. Adams also played a part in the birth of television in his native country, directing and performing in weekly productions for the fledgling Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
In 1961, David moved to England, dancing with the London Festival Ballet (1961–69) and Royal Ballet (1970–1976). During his time with Festival Ballet, he became known in Europe as "Peer Gynt" because of the familiarity of ballet audiences with his appearance in that role. He danced with Margot Fonteyn, Galina Samsova, Toni Lander, Lynn Seymour, Svetlana Beriosova and others during a long and distinctive career which brought him to the Middle East, South America and Japan.
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