Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s longtime artistic director to step down in 2025

WINNIPEG – The longtime artistic director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet says he’ll step down from the role in 2025, ending a 50-year profession with Canada’s oldest ballet company.

André Lewis became the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s artistic director in 1996, and in 2018 he was also appointed chief executive officer of the corporate.

The corporate said in a press release Thursday that the board of directors has begun the transition and can launch a global recruitment plan to rent his successors.

Lewis’s role will probably be split into two, with recent people coming on to take over as executive director by June 2023 and artistic director by 2024.

Lewis began his dance training in Ottawa before being accepted into the skilled division of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School in 1975.

He joined the corporate in 1979 where he had a profession as a dancer for 10 years before he shifted to a management role.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 23, 2022.