Lindsay Fischer

Lindsay Fischer was born in New York City, (1961) and had his early ballet training in Colorado Springs. He entered the National Ballet School in Toronto in 1974, where his teachers included Daniel Sellier, Erik Bruhn and Glenn Gilmour. After graduating in 1978 he spent four months with the Comphania Nacional de Bailado (The National Ballet of Portugal) in Lisbon, and then joined Het National Ballet (the Dutch National Ballet) in Amsterdam, where he became a principal dancer in 1984. His repertoire in Amsterdam included lead roles in traditional romantic/classical story ballets such as The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle and Romeo and Juliet, works from the Diaghilev era, such as Les Biches and Les Sylphides, and a variety of ballets by George Balanchine, including Theme and Variations and Apollo. Mr. Fischer also performed the repertory of the three house choreographers, Rudi van Dantzig, Toer van Schayk and Hans van Mannen, which includes such staples as Four Last Songs, Grosse Fuge, Adagio Hammerklavier, Pyrrhic Dances II and Monument for a Dead Boy. He created leading roles in the ballets Antwoord Gevend (van Dantzig) Isle of the Dead (van Schayk), Seventh Symphony (van Schayk) and Piano Variations I (van Mannen). Mr. Fischer’s repertory also included Oberon in Ashton’s The Dream, and the standard bearer in Kurt Joss’s The Green Table.

Mr. Fischer left the Dutch National Ballet in 1987 and moved back to New York, joining New York City Ballet as a principal dancer While with the company he danced a broad range of Balanchine, ranging from the neo-classical Agon and The Four Temperaments to the high classicism of Raymonda Variations, Diamonds, Tchaikovsky Suite #3 (Tema con Variazioni) and Piano Concerto #2. He danced Jerome Robbins’ In G Major and the Man in Purple in Dances at a Gathering, and created roles in Peter Martins’ The Waltz Project, Tanzspiel, A Fool for You (televised on Live from Lincoln Center) A Musical Offering, and was Florimund to two of the company’s five Auroras during the inaugural season of Martins’ The Sleeping Beauty. He also created roles in ballets by Robert La Fosse and Ib Anderson for the American Music Festival in 1988, and in ballets by John Alleyne during the Diamond Projects of 1992 and 1994.

Mr. Fischer left NYCB in 1995, continuing a free-lance career which included performances with The Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, The Bavarian State Ballet, The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Tokyo Ballet, dancing primarily with Evelyn Hart, Valentina Kozlova and Anne Adair. At the same time he began a teaching career at the National Ballet School in Toronto. After retiring completely from dancing in 1997, he became manager of the School’s Intensive Dance and Career Planning Programs, which he continues to run. Working with Mavis Staines, the School’s artistic director, he has developed these programs so that they not only provide excellent dance training, but also provide a stimulus for the students’ growth and maturation, and a structure for their transition to professional life. These programs also allow the School to make an ongoing commitment to its graduates, so that they can use the School as a resource for training and advice throughout their lives.

Mr. Fischer’s main focus as a teacher is on students in the senior levels, specifically the students in the IDP itself. In addition to teaching, he has staged Balanchine’s Tarantella for students at the School, and the Variations from the same choreographer’s Divertimento #15. He has also served as repetiteur for Rudi van Dantzig’s Four Last Songs, and Toer van Schayk’s Pyrrhic Dances II. He has been a guest repetiteur and teacher for both the National Ballet and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet here in Canada, and for the National Ballet of Portugal in Lisbon. Mr. Fischer lives in Toronto with his wife, Mandy-Jayne Richardson, and their two children.