Fort Wayne Ballet

Incorporated 1956

Founding: In the mid-1950s, with the city thriving as an industrial hub, a group of residents decided a proper metropolis needed a ballet academy, organized and raised the money, and in 1956 filed articles of incorporation — the brief for this section gave 1957, but the company's own anniversary materials and history give 1956, and 1956 is the year carried here. The academy opened on Broadway, and Cinderella was its first full-length ballet. The company bills itself as Indiana's oldest professional ballet company. In 1969 it moved to Penn Avenue, sharing a building with Arts United.

School and company: The Ballet School officially became the Academy of Fort Wayne Ballet in 1979, and took the name Auer Academy of Fort Wayne Ballet in 2013, honoring the Auer Foundation's support. Karen Gibbons-Brown, a former American Ballet Theatre dancer, was named artistic and executive director in 1998; her profile is in Notable People. The Nutcracker — begun, in the company's early years, as just the Nutcracker Suite — became the city's holiday fixture; Gibbons-Brown has put the full ballet's local run at more than fifty-five years. The Ballet moved to the Auer Center on Main Street in 2011. Its sixtieth season, in 2016–17, brought the first complete Swan Lake ever staged in Fort Wayne, and its sixty-fifth was celebrated with a gala at the Arts United Center in March 2022.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Ballet, 65th Anniversary playbill (fortwayneballet.org) — the 1956 articles of incorporation, Cinderella as first full-length ballet, the 1979 Academy naming, Gibbons-Brown's 1998 appointment, the 2013 Auer Academy naming.
2. In Northwest News, "Fort Wayne Ballet marks 60 years of artistry" (November 2016) — the Broadway start, the 1969 Penn Avenue move, the Auer Center move; Whatzup, "A 60th Birthday Party" and the Nutcracker history — the anniversary seasons, the Swan Lake first, the Nutcracker record.