Raymond Smith (dancer)


Raymond Smith is a Canadian ballet dancer and teacher, who was a principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada from 1980 to 1995.

Biography

Raymond Smith was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and immigrated to Canada at the age of seven. He began dancing lessons in London, Ontario, at the age of 11, and entered Canada's National Ballet School at the age of 12, in the eighth grade. Upon graduating in 1975, he joined the corps de ballet of the National Ballet of Canada, making his professional debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in Coppélia. He was promoted to the rank of second soloist in 1978, to first soloist in 1979, and to principal dancer in 1980. During the 1985-86 season he was a principal dancer with London Festival Ballet. He also appeared as a contemporary dancer with the Desrosiers Dance Theatre at the Calgary Olympic Arts Festival in 1988. His decade-long stage partnership with ballerina Veronica Tennant was particularly admired by critics.
Smith retired from the stage in May 1995, following a performance as one of the Stepsisters in Ben Stevenson's Cinderella. He subsequently worked as a ballet master for Ontario Ballet Theatre, Ballet BC and BalletMet. Since 2004 he has been on the faculty of Canada's National Ballet School.

Repertoire

Smith's repertoire included La Sylphide, Napoli, Giselle, Coppélia, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Celia Franca's production of The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, the third act of Raymonda, Michel Fokine's Les Sylphides and Le Spectre de la rose, Frederick Ashton's Romeo and Juliet, La Fille mal gardée and The Two Pigeons, John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew, Ronald Hynd's The Merry Widow, George Balanchine's Serenade, Concerto Barocco, The Four Temperaments and Symphony in C, Kenneth MacMillan's Elite Syncopations, Song of the Earth and Concerto, Glen Tetley's Sphinx, Alice, La Ronde and Tagore, Maurice Béjart's Song of a Wayfarer, Harald Lander's Etudes, Anne Ditchburn's Mad Shadows, Robert Desrosiers' Blue Snake and several ballets created by James Kudelka and John Alleyne.