After 19 seasons, a sweet Atlanta Ballet send-off for Christine Winkler

Christine Winkler got a big surprise on May 16 after she completed the final performance of her 19 years with the company. Fellow dancers, ballet mistresses, stage hands, and others who have worked with the popular ballerina over the years, lined up on stage to give her long-stem roses and other flowers. Her husband, fellow dancer John Welker, with whom she danced a special pas de deux encore of Diane Coburn Bruning’s “Berceuse,” helped her hold the flowers until it became too big an armload. The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre crowd never stopped applauding. CONTRIBUTED BY CHARLIE MCCULLERS.