Marie Bollinger Vogt

1921 - 2020

(News story) Marie Bollinger Vogt, Toledo Ballet's founder and artistic director emerita, died Thursday at Sunset House in Ottawa Hills, Zak Vassar, president and chief executive officer of the Toledo Symphony, announced Friday. She was 99.

"'Madame,' as she was known, developed from childhood exposure to the arts an unbridled passion for dance, studying all forms whenever and wherever she could, including the School of American Ballet under George Balanchine," the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts wrote Friday in a Facebook post.

The Toledo Alliance was formed when Toledo Ballet and the Toledo Symphony merged last year. Ms. Vogt "forged a relationship between" the two organizations beginning in the late 1940s, according to the post.

"Marie Vogt was an entrepreneur in an era when the expectation was for women to be housewives. She was a renaissance woman whose intellectual and cultural thirst compelled her to travel the world and devour the arts, literature, and history. Her students were the beneficiaries of her worldliness. While the lights have gone out in our house with this loss, the celestial balcony has gained a bright star," the post said.

"Through our enduring, six decade friendship and collaboration, Marie never compromised her love of and belief in the Toledo Ballet and the importance of having the Toledo Symphony provide live music for their productions," Bob Bell, the symphony's president emeritus, said in the post. "...She leaves an indelible legacy of a passion for beauty, quality, and the essential place of all arts in life."

In 2015, the Ohio Arts Council gave her its prestigious Governor's Award for the Arts in Ohio in the arts administration category. Ms. Vogt told The Blade the award was the capstone of her life's work.

"This is just wonderful. It is the culmination of all the awards and attention. The next would be to make me president of the United States," she quipped.

"That [award] embodies the work that she has done for more than five decades. She established the Toledo Ballet in 1939 and for 55 years led the institution. That is remarkable in any day or age," arts council spokesman Justin Nigro told The Blade at the time.

A Toledo native, she instructed while she was still in high school. Two years after founding the ballet, the nation's first performance of The Nutcracker took place in Toledo, which Mr. Nigro said started the nationwide Christmastime tradition.

With a well-rounded background in the arts, she found herself choreographer, instructor, and entrepreneur, and never once considered trading the instruction for the glory of the stage.

"I just enjoyed it so much I wanted to share it. Then it became a profession for me. Then it became a livelihood. Then people invited me to teach at their schools, such as the Bach Conservatory," she said in 2015.

She credited her mother for her inspiring her interest in dance, the arts, and music. At age 7, to cure a leg ailment, her mother enrolled her in lessons to strengthen her muscles. Along with studying ballet at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York City, she has studied classical Greek dance, classical Spanish dance, and Flamenco. She also studied literature and Spanish at the University of Toledo.

As she was brought up to enjoy all the art cultures, so did she instruct her students.

"I tried to teach them to enjoy the music. So the dancing becomes the music. Even Balanchine said at 'first it is the music. Then you want the audience to see the music.' That is what the dancers do. they help the audience see the music," she said.

Her pupils have gone on to open dance schools or instruct across the nation and in other nations, such as Canada.

As artistic director of the Toledo Ballet, she widened the audience's world with memorable productions including Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Cinderella, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. With those productions came world-famous dancers.

She also went on to write several books on dance and food, including The Businessman's Ballet Book written "tongue-in-cheek." It was written so that the men who donated money to the ballet or whose daughters wanted lessons would know what it was about, she said.

Her late husband, Theodore, supported her endeavors and had a love of words.

"He helped me a great deal with everything. His opinion was very much appreciated by me. And I did a lot of writing. His love of words was always instilled in me," she said.

Toledo Ballet Executive Director Mari Davies, who had nominated her, told The Blade at the time although she has only known Ms. Vogt for a decade, "I have known her forever. ... She is an icon in Toledo."

"What she brings to this community is so rare. To have been such a young women in that time period, to venture out and start her own business. There were very few female entrepreneurs and that is what she was," she said.