Background

Grant Strate was born on December 7, 1927, in Cardston, Alberta, Canada. He was a son of Alfred Strate and Mable Strate, maiden name Wilson. He grew up in a Mormon family.

Education

Though he took tap dancing lessons as a child, Grant Strate came to dance late as a law student at the University of Alberta, where he also studied dance with Laine Metz, a student of the influential German expressionist Mary Wigman. When in 1951, while he was practicing law in Edmonton, Strate's early choreographic efforts came to the attention of the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, Celia Franca, he gave up his burgeoning career as a lawyer and took up dance full time, becoming a charter member of the National Ballet of Canada as a dancer. Grant Strate earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1949 and a Bachelor of Laws in 1950 from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Simon Fraser University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1999.

Career

When Celia Franca swept through on a recruiting tour for the yet-to-be National Ballet of Canada, Grant Strate showed her two of his choreographies. She offered him a position with the fledgling ballet, and he put aside his anticipated legal future to become a charter member of the Ballet in 1951. Without an early foundation in ballet training, he trained diligently, honing his ferocious work ethic, performed mostly character roles, and choreographed. Through the 1950s and 1960s, he created a series of ballets for the young company, investigating his fresh view of ballet vocabulary, his interest in abstract and narrative arcs, and his fascination with contemporary music in works including The House of Atreus (1964), Ballad (1958), and The Fisherman and his Soul (1956). He was the resident choreographer of the company in 1953-1970.

Grant Strate became Franca's assistant (1951-1970), traveling internationally and becoming active in the acquisition of works for the ballet. One of his prime roles was as Friar Laurence in John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet (1964) - a role that involved alchemy, agency, a glimmer of mystery. The production became one of the company's signature works for almost half a century. He had also been a guest choreographer in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1966-1967, and the Royal Swedish Ballet in 1968-1969.

Inspired by his experience as a guest teacher at the Juilliard School in New York City in 1962-1963, a time of great artistic ferment, Strate fostered and facilitated artistic experimentation, the explosion of independent dance in Canada, and the development of dance education. In 1970, Strate went on to found York University's department of dance, the first of its kind in Canada. From its inception, he was interested in the notion of the university as a natural ground for creative research. Rejecting pre-conceived notions, he forged a vision focused on creative research and the concept of the "thinking dancer." Christopher House, a York alumnus from the Strate era and, since 1994, an artistic director of Toronto Dance Theatre, said: "The founding of the dance department at York was a major achievement. It altered the course of Canadian dance in ways that are still playing out." He was a dance department founding chairman and member of fine arts faculty in 1970-1976, and a dance department acting chairman in 1977-1978.

Grant Strate was the organizer of the four National Choreographic Seminars. These took place in 1978 at York, in 1980 at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and in 1985 and 1991 at Simon Fraser University. Gathering choreographers, dancers, musicians, composers in intensive creative laboratories, under the guidance of internationally known choreographic mentors such as Robert Cohan and Phyllis Lamhut, these seminal events galvanized choreographic realizations, fostered ongoing artistic collaborations, and significantly boosted the development of choreography in Canada.

In 1980, Strate became a director of Simon Fraser University's Centre for the Arts, where he was a dance program coordinator in 1991-1992. There, on top of Burnaby Mountain, he nurtured the sometimes fractious creativity of music, visual art, theatre, and dance. In 1989, he became a director of the Simon Fraser Summer Institute of the Contemporary Arts, where he remained until retiring in 1994.

In 1986-1992, Grant Strate served as a chair of the Vancouver Dance Centre, negotiating the complexities of building the Centre's downtown location. Artistic advisor to the Sichuan Dance Academy in China since 1994, he served as a member of the Dance Advisory Committee for the Canada Council (1993-1997), the Assessment Review Committee, and the Peer Assessment Committee of the Canada Council for the Arts, and sat on the B.C. Arts Board.

Dance Collection Danse published Grant Strate's book, China Dance Journal, in 1997. He published his Memoir in 2002. Strate was a contributor to Canadian Dance Studies and Dance in Canada.

Achievements

• Grant Strate's choreography brought an original Canadian perspective and a modern dance aesthetic to the repertoire of the National Ballet, but his contribution as an educator and nurturer of choreographic talent had been even more important for the development of Canadian dance. He has created over fifty choreographic works that have appeared on stages around the world. Among his honorifics, in 1993, Grant Strate became the second recipient of the prestigious Chalmers Award for Creativity in Dance. In 1995, he was inducted into the Order of Canada, and in 1996 received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award. Strate's work as a teacher brought forth many of Canada's top dance professionals, including Christopher House, Denise Fujiwara, Carol Anderson, Patricia Fraser, and Holly Small.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Grant Strate, a Memoir 2002

Views

Grant Strate never shirked a fight where principles were involved and became the champion of a new generation of contemporary dance artists struggling to gain recognition and funding.

Quotations: "The development of dance as an art form is my most cherished achievement in Canada."

Membership

In 1973, Grant Strate founded Dance in Canada Association and was a founding chairman and board member in 1973-1978. He became a director of the Vancouver Dance Foundation in 1995.

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  Grant Strate became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006.

  Royal Society of Canada , Canada

  2006

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  Grant Strate was elected the President of the World Dance Alliance Americas in 1999. In support of the organization's aims and members, he traveled widely, particularly in China and South-East Asia, which he visited four times, taking up invitations to teach and choreograph.

  World Dance Alliance Americas

  1999

Personality

Grant Strate was consistently creative - creativity and being in the studio fuelled him. He was always in the business of transformation, through creation and education, with far-reaching and enduring effects.

Quotes from others about the person

• Mirna Zagar, an executive director of the Dance Centre, said after Grant Strate's death: "For a man who had such a long, eventful life and contributed so many things, words can't describe how much he will be missed. We don't see these kinds of renaissance people around a lot these days."
  
  Miriam Adams, a co-founder and director of Dance Collection Danse, said: "Grant has been a mighty generous fellow in many, many ways...he cared deeply about animating people's interests."
  
  Jennifer Mascall, an artistic director of Mascall Dance, said: "I was young and it was the night of the end-of-year show in Burton Auditorium. I came into the auditorium and it was empty except for Grant, who was mopping the floor. That the director for the department was doing that did not fit my image of his role. The impression of humility, practicality, has remained a vivid example of how to accept the many aspects of my own role as an artistic director."
  
  Laurie Rockman, a visual artist, said: "I had the very good fortune of being a dancer in the first graduating class of the York University dance program. To me, Grant Strate was an enthusiastic, inspirational and approachable teacher/mentor. I loved working with him. He gave value to all dance forms and, as a result, I was not afraid to explore other techniques and artistic avenues."
  
  Terrill Maguire, a dancer, choreographer, educator, INDE Festival founder and artistic director, said: "The thing that was most astonishing to me about Grant was that he was from the traditional ballet realm, yet was so open to contemporary dance concepts, practices, and ideas. He seemed to have an acceptance of things on the "edge"...Grant continued to impress me as someone with savvy and wisdom when it came to artistic matters, as well as an ability to navigate the murky administrative shoals of the institution."
  
  Joysanne Sidimus, a founder of Dancer Transition Resource Centre, former soloist with London Festival Ballet, and a principal dancer with Pennsylvania Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada, said: "...Friend, mentor, choreographer, his challenging, inquiring mind always served as a catalyst for action and thought...Along with his longtime partner, the wonderful premier danseur, Earl Kraul, they took me under their wing, and, for that early time in Canada, I spent many evenings after rehearsals in their home. Their generosity is legendary. Anytime a guest artist came to Toronto, Grant's home was the go-to place for gatherings. Lynn Seymour, Erik Bruhn, Faith Worth (of the Royal Ballet), and many others were welcomed. Though we always laughed a lot, dinner was never just fun. Grant's inquiring lawyer's mind probed these great artists to speak of their ideas and creative processes. It was an education just to be present on those evenings...He is truly a national treasure, unique, iconoclastic, and yet coupled with a profound humanity and generosity of spirit rare in the world."

Interests

• reading

Connections

After the death in 1999 of his longtime partner, former National Ballet star Earl Kraul, Grant Strate shared his home with one of his most successful protégées, Chinese-born choreographer Wen Wei Wang, whom Strate helped bring to Vancouver as a dancer in the early 1990s. Wang was by the bedside when Strate died.

Father:

Alfred Strate

Mother:

Mable Strate

life partner:

Earl Riedar Kraul

Earl Kraul was a Canadian dancer and teacher. In 1952, he became a founding member of the National Ballet of Canada (NBC). In 1953, Kraul became an NBC soloist and in 1963 was raised to principal status. Until his retirement in 1970, he was one of the versatile stalwarts of the company, dancing a wide range of principal roles. Earl Kraul taught at the National Ballet School, York University, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and George Brown College, Toronto, before becoming ballet master with the Dance Company of Ontario In 1981, he moved to Vancouver, where he became co-director with Dianne Miller of The Dance Gallery, a school at which he taught for 10 years. He began to teach at Simon Fraser University in 1991, and took numerous guest teaching positions in Canada and abroad.

life partner:

Wen Wei Wang

Wen Wei Wang is a Chinese-Canadian businessman, choreographer, dancer, and teacher. In 1991, he came to Canada and joined the Judith Marcuse Dance Company before dancing with Ballet British Columbia for seven years. Since 2003, he has served as Artistic Director of Wen Wei Dance and has choreographed eight full-length works that have been performed these works at major venues across Canada, and around the world.

teacher:

Laine Metz

Grant Strate studied dance with Laine Metz, a student of the influential German expressionist Mary Wigman, at the University of Alberta.