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The Boston Ballet

Dec. 28, 1963: E. Virginia Williams, founder of the Boston Ballet School, directed practice at her studio on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston. A Ford Foundation grant of $144,000 given to the Boston Ballet School several weeks earlier created Boston’s first and only professional ballet company. The Boston Globe

A corporate grant of $144,000 was all E. Virginia Williams needed in 1963 to launch what would become the Boston Ballet. The founder of the company had previously started the New England Civic Ballet in 1958. The dancers took to the stage of the John Hancock Hall on January 25, 1965 to present a program that included Apollo by George Balanchine. - Lane Turner and Lisa Tuite