John Landovsky was 10 when his family left Latvia to escape the Red Army during World War II. He was 16 when they came to the United States and settled in Chicago.
Ballet soon became his passion. Landovsky studied with famed ballerina Ruth Page in Chicago and then danced professionally in the United States, France and Germany.
He bounced back from a career-ending injury to become a teacher of ballet and artistic director of ballet companies in Minnesota and Oklahoma. In 1983 he founded the Hawaii State Ballet.
Landovsky, 82, retired as owner and director of Hawaii State Ballet last month. He plans to split his time between Honolulu and Asheville, N.C., enjoying the change of seasons and participating in tennis and pickle ball tournaments.
JOHN BERGER: I have to ask: What is pickle ball?
JOHN LANDOVSKY: Pickle ball is a game kind of between tennis and pingpong. It is played on one-half of a tennis court and uses a baseball-size plastic ball.
It’s a blast. I play it in Asheville and at Koko Head District Park in Hawaii Kai.
JB: Why retire now?
JL: Because at 82 years old it’s time to start taking it easy. But I might want to teach once or twice a week because it’s what I’ve known my entire working life.
JB: Which Hawaii State Ballet production are you most proud of?
JL: The 1993 full-length “Giselle” where we had three shows and I was able to have my most advanced dancers at the time — Romi Beppu, Elizabeth Mertz and Brigitte Noguchi — each have a chance to perform as Giselle, partnered by Bryan Skates.
JB: What do you see as your legacy as the founder of Hawaii State Ballet?
JL: The students I helped to produce who are — or were — out there dancing and teaching professionally, including Romi Beppu, Elizabeth Mertz (who passed away in December in New York at the age of 40), Kamakoa Page and Amanda Schull, to mention four.
The entire list is at hawaiistateballet.com.
JB: Who is the most memorable person you ever danced with?
JL: Rudolf Nureyev at his United States debut performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1962.
JB: The conventional wisdom is that the greatest ballet dancers come from Russia. Is that still true?
JL: Russia is still producing great dancers, but now there are also China, Japan and Korea. All have some amazing dancers, and those countries seem to be the ones winning all the medals at the international ballet competitions.
“On the Scene” appears on Sundays in the Star-Advertiser. Reach John Berger at jberger@staradvertiser.com.
