In Performance

Back to Winnipeg

Bluebird pas de deux: David Adams and Viola Busday
Max Wyman, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet: The First Fourty Years (Doubleday, 1978) records that

When David Adams went to England in 1946, the English thought his style of dancing brash. But, ironically, it was Adams who have the [Winnipeg Ballet] company its first real taste of pure classicism. After two years in England he came back laden with classical bits and pieces which he proceeded to mount on the company -- Nijinsky's Spectre de la Rose, London's version of Petipa's Swan Lake (the pas de trois from act one, the grand pas de deux from act two and the black swan pas de deux from act 3) and London's version of Petipa's Sleeping Beauty (Bluebird variations, the lilac fairy, the rose adagio and eventually the grand pas de deux from the finale).

Viola Robertson, (née Busday, one of Adams' partners in Winnipeg Ballet during 1949-51) said of him in July 1993, "I knew David Adams in the 1950s. We studied with Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally, founders of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and worked together to become performers with the 'Winnipeg Ballet' as it was known in those days. I knew him as an excellent partner and friend. I also performed in ballets that he choreographed with the company. He went on to great accomplishments which I feel is certainly worthy of recognition."