The National Ballet of Canada is a Canadian ballet company that was founded in 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, with Celia Franca, the first artistic director. A company of 70 dancers with its own orchestra, the National Ballet has been led since 2022 by artistic director Hope Muir. Renowned for its diverse repertoire, the company performs traditional full-length classics, embraces contemporary work and encourages the creation of new ballets, as well as the development of Canadian dancers and choreographers.
Nederlands Dans Theater is a Dutch contemporary dance company. NDT is headquartered at the Amare building in The Hague. NDT also performs at other venues in the Netherlands, including Amsterdam's Het Muziektheater and Nijmegen's Stadsschouwburg.
Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) is an American professional ballet company and school based in Harlem, New York City. It was founded in 1969 under the directorship of Arthur Mitchell and later partnered with Karel Shook. Milton Rosenstock served as the company's music director from 1981 to 1992. The artistic director has been Robert Garland since 2022. The DTH is renowned for being both "the first Black classical ballet company", and "the first major ballet company to prioritize Black dancers".
The Boston Ballet is an American professional classical ballet company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams and Sydney Leonard, and was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. It has been led by Violette Verdy (1980–1984), Bruce Marks (1985–1997), and Anna-Marie Holmes (1997–2000). Mikko Nissinen has been Artistic Director of Boston Ballet since 2001. Nissinen leads the company in partnership with Executive Director Ming Min Hui.
A large variety of dance companies exist in Canada, encompassing a wide tradition of dances that represent both its many indigenous cultures, as well as that of its European-descended population.
Susan Marshall is an American choreographer and the Artistic Director of Susan Marshall & Company. She has held the position of Director of the Program in Dance at Princeton University since 2009.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet (ASFB) is a multi-faceted arts organization that nurtures and manifests the love of dance across a spectrum of programs for the cultural enrichment of Aspen, Colorado, and Santa Fe, New Mexico—and beyond.
ODC, formerly the Oberlin Dance Collective, is a contemporary dance and arts organization founded in 1971, in Oberlin, Ohio, by current artistic director Brenda Way. ODC relocated to San Francisco in 1976 and in 1979 became the first modern dance company in America to build its own facility, from which it still operates. ODC comprises ODC/Dance, its contemporary dance company, ODC Theater, and ODC School, which provides classes and training for youth, teen, and adult dancers.
Miami City Ballet is an American ballet company based in Miami Beach, Florida, led by artistic director Lourdes Lopez.
Jo Strømgren, was educated in classical ballet and had some years as a dancer before an injury made him pursue a multi-disciplinary creative career.
Crystal Pite is a Canadian choreographer and dancer. She began her professional dance career in 1988 at Ballet BC, and in 1996 she joined Ballett Frankfurt under the tutelage of William Forsythe. After leaving Ballett Frankfurt she became the resident choreographer of Montreal company Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal from 2001 to 2004. She then returned to Vancouver where she focused on choreographing while continuing to dance in her own pieces until 2010. In 2002 she formed her own company called Kidd Pivot, which produced her original works Uncollected Work (2003), Double Story (2004), Lost Action (2006), Dark Matters (2009), The You Show (2010), The Tempest Replica (2011), Betroffenheit (2015), and Revisor (2019) to date. Throughout her career she has been commissioned by many international dance companies to create new pieces, including The Second Person (2007) for Netherlands Dans Theater and Emergence (2009) for the National Ballet of Canada, the latter of which was awarded four Dora Mavor Moore Awards.
Kidd Pivot, is a contemporary dance theatre company based in Vancouver, Canada. The company, currently comprising eight full-time dancers and several guest artists, is led by its founder and artistic director, Crystal Pite. Since its formation in 2002 Kidd Pivot has toured extensively around the world, presenting several works, many of which have received awards and accolades from the international dance community.
Big Dance Theater is a New York City-based dance theater company. It is led by Artistic Director Annie-B Parson, who founded Big Dance Theater in 1991 with Molly Hickok and Paul Lazar. Big Dance Theater has created over 20 dance/theater works and won 18 awards over the years. They have been commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The National Theater of Paris, The Japan Society, and The Walker Art Center, and have performed in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, Classic Stage Company, Japan Society, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Chocolate Factory, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Walker Art Center, Yerba Buena, On the Boards, New York Live Arts, UCLA Live, The Spoleto Festival USA, and at festivals in Europe and Brazil.
The Sarasota Ballet is an American ballet company based in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded in 1987 by former ballet dancer Jean Weidner Goldstein and is now acclaimed for its performances of Sir Frederick Ashton's ballets under its director Iain Webb and assistant director Margaret Barbieri.
Ballet BC is a contemporary ballet company located in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Richard Siegal is an American dancer and choreographer. He is founder and artistic director of Richard Siegal/Ballet of Difference (2016), a contemporary ballet company based in Cologne, Germany, in partnership with Schauspiel Köln and tanz.köln. He is also founder of The Bakery (2006), an interdisciplinary platform for performance art.
Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater is an American Spanish-dance company in residence at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. The Ensemble Español consists of the professional dance company, touring nationally and internationally throughout the year, as well as the youth company. The Ensemble Español provides arts education programming to students across Chicago, runs community outreach programs/workshops, offers college level dance courses at Northeastern Illinois University, and produces the annual American Spanish Dance and Music Festival.
Hope Muir is a Canadian dancer, rehearsal director, teacher and the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. She danced professionally in the UK and US for seventeen years, until her retirement from performing in 2006. Then, she began working as a rehearsal director and teacher. In 2009, she joined Scottish Ballet as a rehearsal director, and became its associate artistic director in 2015. In 2017, she became the artistic director of Charlotte Ballet. In 2022, she assumed her position at the National Ballet of Canada, officially titled Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director.
Sarah-Gabrielle Ryan is a Mexican-American ballet dancer who is currently a principal dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle.
The Seasons' Canon is a contemporary ballet choreographed by Crystal Pite to Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The ballet is Pite's first work made for the Paris Opera Ballet, and premiered in 24 September 2016 at the Palais Garnier. Pite won the Prix Benois de la Danse for Best Choreographer.
