Patricia Sparks’ long career in ballet culminated with her recruitment into the Winnipeg Ballet and a command performance for Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in October 1951.

She was 20, and no neophyte. The Victoria native, now Pat Taylor, began dance lessons at age six. At 94, she still resides in Oak Bay, near the beach, keeps fit with tai chi and has total recall of her ballet training and performance. It all began with her mother’s friend and Pat’s godmother, Wynne Shaw, whose Victoria dance studio ran from 1941 to 1983.

“Wynne made up her own dances,” Pat recalls. “She wasn’t a dancer at all. Couldn’t demonstrate anything. But she was a phenomenal teacher.”  

It was through Miss Shaw that a 20-year-old Patricia Sparks was invited to join the Winnipeg Ballet. Shaw knew Gweneth Lloyd, co-founder of the company that earned its royal charter from Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is this year marking its 85^th anniversary.

Lloyd, an English ballet teacher and choreographer, arrived in Winnipeg with Betty Farrally, a former student of hers, in 1938. In 1939 they founded the Winnipeg Ballet, the oldest, continuously operating ballet company in North America. At the time when Sparks joined the company, Farrally was the ballet mistress.

In 1951, Pat Sparks, as she became known, Victor Duret and Beverley Ivings, all of Victoria, were among seven new dancers invited to join – in their case without auditioning — the Winnipeg Ballet. Another Victoria dancer, Bill McGrath, was already a member of the company. Sparks, Duret and Ivings were photographed for the Victoria Times, looking elegant with their suitcases, just before boarding a bus for Winnipeg.

“We got back there at the beginning of September,” says Pat, as if it was yesterday. “Our first performance was in front of Princess Elizabeth [a year before her coronation] and Prince Philip. It was the first thing we rehearsed for.”  After the show we were all introduced to them.”

The program consisted of Visages, Finishing School and The Wise Virgins, all choreographed by Lloyd, and Ballet Premier, created by Arnold Spohr. All 17 dancers performed for the royal couple. Jean Stoneham, who had danced with the Ottawa Ballet, was the star of the show. Pat recalls princess Elizabeth as stunningly beautiful. “They watched the first half of the program. After the show we were all introduced to them.”

For a still young and impressionable Pat Sparks, artistic director Arnold Spohr was a welcoming and encouraging figure. “He was a very kind man. On Christmas Eve, we out-of-towners were invited to his family home. It was the first time I had ever seen a Christmas tree with candles.” Spohr, whose heritage was German, “was a very tall man as were his brothers, all of them policemen.”

Among the dancers Pat met at the Winnipeg ballet was Hungarian-born Eva von Gencsy, who would later go on to co-found Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal.  “She was quite a character. I became really good friends with Eva and she would stay with me when in Victoria.”

Dancing professionally with a company on a shoestring budget was something of a challenge. “The costumes were already made. You either fitted into them or you didn’t. There was no money for adjustments.” And, for a young dancer from Victoria, dancing and touring in a harsh Canadian winter was an adventure of another kind.

“The first thing I did was buy a winter coat, a fur. In January 1952, we toured to Calgary. We took the train. I remember on the walk to the hotel. It was 60-below [Fahrenheit] with the windchill. We were billeted on the top floor of a house with a lovely lady. There were no cooking facilities, so we got a hotplate.”

Pat Sparks danced with RWB for two seasons, 1951 and 1952, but continued to perform after returning to Victoria, notably with Theatre Under the Stars, the musical theatre company that puts on shows to this day in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. “It was really fun,” she says. “We would rehearse all day in English Bay. Mostly, the old chestnuts.  Chu Chin Chow. The Merry Widow [as cancan girls] . . . waltzy kind of things, where we danced with the men.” One time, in a departure from routine, TUTS staged Brigadoon.

Once married to John Olsen, owner of The Strathcona Hotel, and later to Trevor Taylor, Pat is single and remains a participant in Victoria’s active dance scene. In 2016, she, along with some other volunteers and University of Victoria MA candidate Elizabeth Bassett and initiated the Dance Victoria Archives, an important record of professional dance on Vancouver Island. The archives document dancers such as Anna Marie Holmes and Patricia Sparks and renowned Victoria-born choreographer Crystal Pite.

The ballerina in Pat Sparks Taylor has not disappeared. She keeps moving and she keeps informed about the dance world. And she makes for fascinating conversation for anyone interested in Canadian ballet history.

Photos: Beverly Ivings, Kay Bird, Eva von Gencsy, Pat Sparks, Sheilagh Henderson and Viola Busday in Rondel 1951; Pat Sparks in costume for Finishing School; Pat Sparks Taylor at home.

Credits: Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet Archives; Susan Walker