Barbara Weisberger, a force in American ballet, founder of the Pennsylvania Ballet, dies at 94

(NYT) » Barbara Weisberger, who founded the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia with a steadfast vision that transformed the troupe into a nationally acclaimed company, died on Dec. 23 at her home in Kingston, Pa. She was 94.

Her death was reported by her family.

Originally trained in ballet in New York and Philadelphia, young Barbara, like many children, loved studying dance but never had a career as a dancer in a professional company.

Instead, she became an influential ballet teacher who played an important role in the development of regional ballet in America.

She had also been the first child accepted by George Balanchine in the school he opened in Manhattan in 1934.

It was a link that was renewed after her family moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where she opened a ballet school in 1953 and attended seminars that Balanchine organized for teachers associated with small community troupes.

Weisberger went on to establish another school, in Philadelphia, in 1962 and the Pennsylvania Ballet the following year.

By 1974, the company was, as Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times that year, “absolutely one of the best troupes in the country.”

Weisberger’s time as artistic director, ending in 1982, was a tour de force. She combined a focus on works by Balanchine, the Pennsylvania Ballet’s official adviser, with an openness to works by an eclectic range of other choreographers.

A major early success was modern dance choreographer John Butler’s version of Carl Orff ’s raucous cantata “Carmina Burana,” which the Pennsylvania dancers performed with the New

York City Opera.

In the same period, Antony Tudor, the king of psychological ballet, restaged his passionate dance-drama “Jardin aux Lilas” for the Pennsylvania company. Reviewing a 1967 performance, Barnes praised the “sensitivity” of Tudor’s staging, adding that “the dancers repay the compliment with an almost touching sense of dedication.”

Weisberger started her Philadelphia company with only a few students from the Wilkes-Barre school.