Bojan Spassoff, ballet teacher and leader for many years, has died at the age of 79

Bojan Ivanko Spassoff, who served as director and president of Philadelphia’s prestigious Rock School for Dance Education for 37 years, died Oct. 23 at the age of 79 after a long illness.

Mr. Spassoff, who went by Bo, was artistic director of the Savannah Ballet and Ballet Oklahoma. In 1984, he became director of The Rock, then known as the School of Pennsylvania Ballet. He teamed up with Milton and Constance Rock to found it as the Shirley Rock School of Pennsylvania Ballet.

However, by 1992, the Pennsylvania Ballet (now Philadelphia Ballet) found itself on shaky financial footing and both the school and the company were in danger of going under. Under Mr. Spassoff’s leadership, the school separated from the company and became an independent organization, renamed the Rock School for Dance Education.

“Bo was one of the warmest people I have ever encountered in the field of classical ballet,” he said Peter Stark, who took over management of the Rock after Mr. Spassoff retired in 2021. “I met him in the early eighties when I was 13 years old. He ran the New York State Summer School for the Arts in Saratoga Springs, and he was the most energetic and positive teacher.”

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Mr. Spassoff was also one of the early proponents of it Youth America Grand Prix, a ballet competition for students which has grown into a large international organization and one of the most important channels for ballet students to land jobs with companies.

“He’s really part of the legacy of that organization,” Stark said. “He is one of the few who really took a step forward and saw that this was the future, that this would be an opportunity for students to network.”

That’s also where Stark met Mr. Spassoff again, when they were judging together.

The Rock now has alumni at most major ballet companies around the world. It became known as a top school where students could compete and be seen, which most ballet company-affiliated academies did not do.

ABT principal dancer Christine Shevchenko was a longtime student at the Rock and found early success at YAGP.

Also at YAGP, the Spassoffs met Isaac Hernandez, then a 12-year-old from Mexico, who would become their student. He is also a principal dancer of ABT. His younger brother Esteban soon followed him to the Rock and is now a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet.

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Michaella Mabinty DePrince, a ballet superstar born in Sierra Leone, was also their student, as were New York City Ballet principal dancer Taylor Stanley and BalletX artistic director Christine Cox.

The school became even more famous when Rock, the Spassoffs and their students were featured in a ballet documentary called First position. For years, dancers from all over the world came to Philadelphia after seeing the film. Even today, the Rock School has students from 23 countries.

Bojan Ivanko Spassoff was born in Norway in 1945 and lived in Europe until he was 12. He then moved to Philadelphia for a year, graduated from Coral Gables High School in Florida and started taking ballet lessons in his senior year to improve. on track, said his son, Sasha Spassoff.

He moved to New York to study at the School of American Ballet on a scholarship. Mr. Spassoff subsequently danced professionally with the Dutch National Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the American Ballet Theater and the San Francisco Ballet.

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He met his wife, Stephanie Wolf Spassoff, with whom he ran the Rock School while both were performing with ABT. After his dancing career, Mr. Spassoff turned to ballet leadership.

“The problem with the Rock School is that we own our building and we have no debt,” Stark said. “(Mr. Spassoff) ran a company in the black for all those years. And were there tight times? Yes, but he never let it slide. It’s a solid business model. He was an incredible businessman.

“I owe my entire career to him,” Stark said. “And I feel like a lot of people feel that way.”

Alumni return to the school as guest teachers years after studying there.

“The most important advice (Mr. Spassoff) and Stephanie gave me was to treat students as children and people first, and to teach with an open heart, and they really did that.”

Mr. Spassoff is survived by his wife of 53 years, Stephanie Wolf Spassoff; sons Sasha Spassoff (wife Jenn Hassinger) and Sebastian Spassoff (fiancée Myra “Em” Eckenhoff), and granddaughter Henrietta Spassoff.