De Strooper returns home.

Oregon Ballet Theatre dancer Paul De Strooper was headed for a BA in French at the University of Victoria when he discovered ballet and abandoned the scholar's life for the stage. Now, after a 14-year performing career with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (in whose school he trained), Alberta Ballet, and OBT (which he joined in 2003 when Christopher Stowell assumed the artistic directorship), De Strooper returns to Canada to take over the helm of the fledgling Ballet Victoria.

Founded in 2003 by former National Ballet of Canada corps member Jacqueline Sloan, Ballet Victoria is a civic ballet with one big holiday show a year performed by local dancers and guest artists. De Strooper hopes to take it to the next level, and mold it into a small professional company performing several repertory shows a year, with strong ties to a professional school.

In his time at OBT, De Strooper has brought what Stowell calls an "all-consuming love of theater" to every role from Prince Ivan in Yuri Possokhov's Firebird to his part in James Kudelka's emotionally laden Almost Mozart. That passion is laced with intelligence and curiosity. "He's a gentleman partner," Stowell says, "with a strong interest in investigating that process."

De Strooper, who would like to produce festivals like Pacific Northwest Ballet's recent "Celebrate Seattle," seems undaunted by the task ahead of him. "I'm in love with the art form," he says. "And I can do it for a long time."