Philanthropist gives RWB program $3M endowment

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This article was published 09/06/2022 (1411 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet School’s Aspirant Program is getting a $3-million gift — and a new name.

The Anna McCowan-Johnson Aspirant Program is named for the longtime dance educator, the founder and artistic director of Interplay School of Dance in Toronto. McCowan-Johnson died in 2020 and her husband, Toronto philanthropist Don Johnson, made the $3-million contribution in memory of his late wife.

McCowan-Johnson had a deep connection with the RWB: she was taught and mentored by one of the company’s co-founders, Gweneth Lloyd, and often championed the RWB School to young dancers.

“I am absolutely thrilled about this — I think it’s such an incredible gift,” says Vanessa Léonard, director of the Aspirant Program. “And I’m really thrilled that the Aspirant Program is being recognized, as that’s an important part of the dancers’ training here at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It really is the bridge between their academic studies and going into the professional world.”

The Anna McCowan-Johnson Aspirant Program is a full-time, two-year, post-secondary training program in the school’s Professional Division for advanced-level classical ballet dancers.

While alumni have gone on to dance with various companies, many tend to stay in the city — and that’s by design.

Since it was founded in 1970, the RWB School Professional Divison, which attacts students from around the world, has served as a pipeline to the company, so it can hire dancers who have come up under its own training — dancers such as Léonard, née Lawson, who was a former RWB principal dancer. Around 70 per cent of the company is composed of alumni.

Julianna Generoux is one of three Aspirant students who will be joining the company next season as an apprentice. The 19-year-old from Okotoks, Alta., loved her time in the program, particularly the chance to hone her skills and artistry on a range of repetoire, as well as perfomance opportunites such as On the Edge, an annual student showcase. (This year’s program runs tonight and Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the RWB Founder’s Studio. Tickets are at rwb.org.) “I feel confident and set up for what’s to come,” Generoux says.

Joining the company “is really special and exciting,” she says. “To train here for so many years, and to finally reach this moment, it just feels like a dream come true.”

The gift from Johnson, who was born and raised in Lundar, will create an endowment fund at the Winnipeg Foundation. Each year, the Aspirant program will receive an amount from the foundation, which represents interest earned on the initial contribution.

Additional support from the Canada Cultural Investment Fund, a federal program that matches donations made to endowments held by arts groups across the country, can allow the fund to grow as well.

“Endowments future-proof your organization,” says Kristine Betker, director of development at the RWB. That proved especially true during that pandemic, she says, when the RWB lost a major source of revenue in ticket sales. “So, what it means (for the Aspirant program) is we will always have this consistent, steady source of income to fund the program.”

And that means the program can continue to develop and nurture young professional artists — something McCowan-Johnson believed in.

“I do want to look into really continuing to work with choreographers and new choreographers, with people coming in to really feed these students what they need, so that they can go into a company having that experience with working on new creations, and learning new repertoire,” Léonard says.

Johnson’s $3-million gift to RWB is part of a $16-million contribution to ballet in Canada overall: he also gave $3 million to Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto and $10 million to the National Ballet Company.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti