Born: April 4 1956, Toronto, Ontario

Described by former National Ballet of Canada principal dancer Veronica Tennant in 1991 as " one of the most extraordinary ballerinas dancing today, one of the most complete", Royal Winnipeg Ballet principal Evelyn Hart is among Canada's foremost expressive artists.

She suffered two rejections by the National School before beginning serious ballet training in 1970 in London, Ontario with Dorothy and Victoria Carter. The following year she was invited to the National Ballet School summer session and given full scholarship to the school that fall. However, she left the school three months later, suffering from anorexia nervosa and emotional exhaustion.

John Hart (Evelyn's brother) believes that it was the Carters' decision to take her on as a student that brought about everything that followed; without the Carters, Evelyn would never have been able to fulfill her aim. Evelyn agrees. "They are indelibly etched on my soul for life. Without them I wouldn't be where I am. To this day I attribute my whole being in dance to those two women. It is because of the Carters that I am a dancer".

The Carters' rumbling old house at the corner of leafy St. George and Sydenham streets became Evelyn's second home. She loved the school's air of tradition, memorized the ballet photographs on the wall, and soaked up the atmosphere of the rehearsal studio. She called the building "the hallowed halls." Most important, she found the beginning of her solid formal training. The Carters had the challenge of taking raw talent and giving it a framework of technique.

What they also provided - and what made it easy for her to accept their technical help - was a recognition and an acceptance of her instinct and love for dance artistry and theatricality. She believes that from the start they understood her soul, but they also knew that she needed the practical means to express it. Almost by accident, she had fallen into an ideal circumstance. The Carters were the means to make her dream come true. They were her escape. They saw the talent, but they also recognized her desire, her absolute need to dance.

Her confidence restored by a 1972 trip with the Carters to New York, she joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School's professional programme under David Moroni in 1973. Her first appearance with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet was in 1974, while still a student. She joined the company in 1976, became a soloist in 1978 and a principal in 1979.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet has mounted a number of narrative classics to showcase her talents: Rudi van Dantzig's Romeo and Juliet (1981), Peter Wright's Giselle (1982) and Swan Lake (1987). She has danced major classical roles as a guest with other companies, among the Sleeping Beauty with the National Ballet of Canada and the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet, Onegin for the National Ballet of Canada and Bayerische Staatsballett, Cinderella and La Sylphide for Bayerische Staatsballett. She has received equal acclaim in shorter works such as Vincente Nebrada's Our Waltzes, Hans van Manen's Five Tangos, van Manen's Songs Without Words, George Balanchines's Allegro Brillante, and has become identified with a number of short showpiece works, among them Vesak's Belong (1973) and Jiri Kylain's Nuages.

She has been the subject of two films, one featuring her dancing in Odessa, Moscow and Leningrad, 1986, and a personality profile entitled Moment of Light: The Dancing of Evelyn Hart, 1992. She also danced the lead role opposite Peter Schaufuss in Natalia Makarova's 1988 film version of Swan Lake. She has twice received ACTRA awards for Best Variety Performer for television special.

A notorious perfectionist who is rarely satisfied with her work onstage, she makes large demands of commitment from her partners. Partners with whom she has at different times established fruitful working relationships include Peregrine, Henny Jurriens, Richard Cragun, Rex Harrington, Andris Liepa, and Lindsay Fischer. "There is no dancer alive today more able to lead the imagination into a kingdom of legend and romance than Evelyn Hart", wrote Michael Scott in the Vancouver Sun after a Hart performance in Swan Lake in February, 1992.

Hart became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1983 (Companion of the Order, 1994). She was voted Manitoba's Woman of the Year in 1987 and in 1989 received honorary doctorates form McMaster University and the University of Manitoba (she danced The Dying Swan instead of giving an acceptance speech).