Eugene Ballet’s Toni Pimble might be the most prolific ballet choreographer Oregon has ever known. In her 46-year tenure in Eugene, she has choreographed more than 60 works and has been instrumental in growing EB from a small ballet school into an internationally respected ballet company. 

Pimble is stepping down as artistic director next year – Jennifer Martin, the company’s associate artistic director, will succeed her – and Eugene Ballet is recognizing Pimble’s remarkable legacy with a tribute season showcasing the range of her work over the years, including full-length ballet choreography for Mowgli (2012-13), which opens the season on November 1, as well as The Nutcracker (1981-82) in December and Carmen (2007-08), featuring George Bizet’s iconic score, in February.

The artistic team chose to present Pimble audience favorites from over the years. “One of the highlights is Silk and Steel (1999-2000), which has always been a favorite for its visually stunning impact,” says Michelle Ferguson, Eugene Ballet’s communications and marketing director. The work opens the program for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1985-86) next May.

The Toni’s, a one-night-only performance next April 12, will feature works that Pimble herself handpicked to showcase the breadth of her career. The evening includes May Dances (1980-81), Two’s Company (1992-93), Concerto for Seven Dancers, a pas de deux from The Taming of the Shrew (2021-22), and the debut of her new work, The Lark Ascending, inspired by the larks she watched as a little girl in England.

“Each piece has deep significance and shines a spotlight on the lives her choreography has touched over the decades,” says Ferguson. 

Landing in Eugene

Born in Camberley, England, Pimble attended the renowned Elmhurst Ballet School, which has since relocated to Birmingham, from age 11 to 18. As she was finishing her ballet training there, Pimble was contacted by the ballet master at Opernhaus Kiel in Kiel, Germany, who was looking to replace an injured dancer in the Kiel Ballet. After an audition with Pimble at Elmhurst Ballet School, she was offered the job.

“I didn’t have a passport, I’d never been on a plane, and I had a week to get to Kiel,” says Pimble. Her father managed to get her a passport and a plane ticket, and she started dancing the following Monday.

In her second year of dancing in Kiel, she met Riley Grannan, another dancer and a farm boy from Junction City, Oregon. They became a couple and eventually married. After dancing several years in Keil and elsewhere in Germany, in 1978 Grannan, who had studied at Eugene Ballet, had the opportunity to move back and take over the school. 

Grannan and Pimble decided to try it. “We thought it would be great to teach, but also to have a small performing group,” says Pimble. 

They had been in Eugene only a short time when another local performing arts group, which is now the Eugene Concert Choir, came to them with the idea of doing Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” as a ballet. 

“We loved the idea, but then we realized someone had to choreograph the piece and create the costumes,” Pimble laughs, “and that’s really how it all started.”

Early collaborations

Pimble and Grannan quickly became aware that funding ballet in the U.S. is far different from Europe, where government funding for the arts is more substantial.

But the small size of Eugene Ballet worked in their favor. “Because we were so small, we had the chance to grow naturally, to fail and succeed naturally,” Pimble says. She also credits Eugene Ballet Academy founders Doreen Gilday and her husband, Fred Ditzhaz, for building a solid ballet school with strong upper-level dancers.

A spirit of collaboration existed among the Eugene arts programs, too. “We were all very open to working with one another,” says Pimble.

Their timing was also good, since the bond to build the Hult Center for the Performing Arts passed shortly after they arrived. The late Benson Snyder was then executive director of the Eugene Arts Foundation, which raised the funding to complete the Hult Center and helped develop endowments for performing arts organizations. Snyder came to watch Eugene Ballet perform and was impressed with the performance. Afterward, he asked Pimble and Grannan if he could meet with their board.

“We didn’t even know what a board was. We were so naive,” says Pimble. Snyder eventually helped them form a board.

Eugene Ballet’s first performance at the Hult Center – they presented Firebird – was a major milestone. They were the second group to perform in the Hult Center when it was completed in 1982 and were accompanied by the Eugene Symphony. The Hult Center remains their performing home to this day.

A key alliance

With the help of guest artists, Eugene Ballet was able to put on a season with The Nutcracker and two or three other performances in the early years. In their first attempt at having a paid company, with an annual $400,000 budget, they hired six dancers for about 12 weeks of touring performances.

Funding remained a challenge. In 1994 they met Benjamin Kuzmichev, director of the Ballet Idaho in Boise. Ballet Idaho had a great space but struggled to build its performance program, while Eugene Ballet had limited rehearsal space but a stronger performance program. They decided to form a unique alliance. 

They agreed to share a professional company and the associated production costs while maintaining separate administrative offices, boards of directors, educational programs, and dance schools. This alliance held for 14 years, from 1994 until their final performance season in 2007-2008.

During these years, Pimble would spend much of her time in Idaho working with the company, which performed both at the Morrison Center in Boise and at the Hult Center in Eugene, as well as touring. This longtime arrangement helped both groups grow strong enough to support their own companies.

Honing her choreography skills

Pimble’s only choreographic training before she started choreographing for Eugene Ballet was a studio workshop she participated in while dancing in Kiel.

Initially Grannan and Pimble shared the artistic and administrative roles. “Eventually it became clear that Riley was a capable administrator, and I had a strong intuition for choreography,” explains Pimble, so she gradually took over the artistic director role.

As a dancer in Germany, Pimble had performed works by numerous notable choreographers, “I would say that all our work in Germany gave us a strong base to draw from when crafting our own pieces,” explains Pimble. “You don’t operate in a vacuum. You pull from what you know, and then you build on that, continually.”   

She knows not every piece was strong in the beginning. “There were pieces that we did that were probably pretty awful, but there were really good pieces, too, from the start. Our choreography for Coppelia, for example, was strong from the beginning.”

Pimble and Grannan enjoyed coming up with original works that no one else was doing. Early on they did a silent-movie ballet based on Charlie Chaplin. “Because we were in a smaller community, if we failed it wasn’t catastrophic. This gave us the freedom to try new things and grow our skills.”

Pimble has developed both classical and contemporary repertoire. And she hasn’t been afraid to get political in her creations. In 1992 she created “Celebration of the Uncommon Woman,” a program of ballets choreographed by women to scores composed by women, accompanied by the Eugene Symphony under conductor Marin Alsop.

In 1997, Pimble created Still Falls the Rain, a ballet inspired by a report of the Taliban stoning to death an adulterous woman. The score was composed by Patricia Van Ness, a Celebration of the Uncommon Woman composer.

Pimble has choreographed numerous full-length works, as well. “It’s truly amazing how she can visualize a full-length production before even stepping into the studio with the dancers to begin rehearsals,” says Jennifer Martin, associate artistic director, who will take over from Pimble next year.

Pimble’s work has been performed by companies throughout the U.S., including the New York City Ballet, the Nevada Dance Theatre, the Kansas City Ballet, the Atlanta Ballet, and the Washington Ballet. Her choreography has been performed internationally and was part of a United States Information Agency Tour to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Syria, Jordan, and Tunisia.

Leading the way

Toni Pimble was one of few female artistic directors in the ballet world when she started in the role. “In a field that’s typically dominated by men, Toni fearlessly and tirelessly led our organization for 46 years,” says Martin.

As her career progressed, she became aware that without thoughtful planning, women might not be a part of Eugene Ballet leadership into the future. 

According to Dance Data Project’s 2024 report, men replaced women as artistic directors globally this year at almost two times the rate of the previous year. Pimble was prescient in understanding this possibility, and over the past two decades has mentored two of her former dancers, Jennifer Martin and Suzanne Haag, to take over the leadership of Eugene Ballet. 

Explains Pimble, “I felt like it was very important to draw from those people who have been committed to Eugene Ballet for many years, and who really know the company and understand who we are and how we work.”

Haag, the current resident choreographer, will take over as associate artistic director next year. “Toni has been instrumental in not only building an incredible company from the ground up in Eugene but has been a true champion of growth within the organization,” says Haag. “Toni believed in my choreographic abilities before I could see them myself, and encouraged my exploration as a dancemaker.”

Last year, because of its strong female leadership, Eugene Ballet received the top “best overall” award in Dance Data Project’s first-ever Gender Equity Index ranking of the top 50 ballet companies in the U.S.

A longtime arts advocate

The strength and renown of the Eugene Ballet has been aided by their touring, which they have done from the early performance days. They have toured small Oregon towns and cities as well as internationally. The company has performed The Nutcracker with students from the Alaska Dance Theatre in Anchorage, Alaska ten times since 2009.

In all, Eugene Ballet has toured to more than 150 cities in 32 states and seven countries. Pimble is generous in sharing the art form she loves. “During the 30 years I’ve worked with her, I’ve seen her deep love for this organization, our community, and the art form shine through,” says Jennifer Martin.

In 1996, Eugene Ballet was awarded the Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts from then Gov. John Kitzhaber. Pimble’s arts advocacy in Eugene and beyond earned her an individual Governor’s Arts Award from Gov. Kate Brown in 2020.

Helping to envision and secure funding for Eugene Ballet’s new and ample home in the Midtown Arts Center was a longtime endeavor that Pimble more recently accomplished. The company moved into the building in 2020 during the pandemic. The 128,000-square-foot, mixed-use building houses Midtown Arts Center, where the Eugene Ballet has its studios and offices alongside other arts organizations, as well as a 40-unit luxury condo complex known as The Midtown.

The center is also home to Orchestra Next, a training orchestra and the resident orchestra with the Eugene Ballet, another arts partnership that Pimble has fostered.

Fortunately, Eugene is not losing Toni Pimble.

She is gradually handing off some of her responsibilities while still supporting the performances during this tribute season. “But, obviously, I’m not going to just evaporate after this year,” she says, laughing. “I will stay on the board and still oversee performances of my work. I will also continue my costume design work.”

She remains devoted to her beloved company, and they have a thriving organization to thank her for. As she takes over the helm, Jennifer Martin is keenly aware of the big shoes she has to fill. “The recognition and reputation that the Eugene Ballet has today,” she says, “are testaments to Toni’s incredible leadership and unwavering dedication.”

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Tribute Season launches November 1 with Mowgli

The tribute season for Toni Pimble opens November 1 with Mowgli, an original Toni Pimble ballet based on Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.” The performance features colorful, imaginative costumes and sets, larger-than-life puppets, and Toni Pimble’s joyful choreography. For tickets and information on Toni Pimble’s tribute season, visit Eugene Ballet’s website.