July 16 2021 The former principal dancer had to retire with an injury, and he takes over as interim artistic director. The most exciting news of Peter Franc's summer has been that he and his wife would be welcoming their second child. Before being a dancer at Oregon Ballet Theatre or a teacher for OBT2 or now taking on a new artistic director role, Franc considered himself a "family man" first. But, Franc's career world also has changed dramatically in the past year. His 17-year dancing career, which culminated with being an OBT principal dancer, ended due to a chronic back injury sustained in March. Because of company shutdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic and government restrictions, dancers had to train on their own and "every time we came back to work from a lockdown period, (the back) would go out. … I thought it would heal from down time, but I danced with a compromised back, and it would still go out. I'm still doing therapy to get back to a normal, comfortable way of life."