Canada’s National Ballet School opens new building

Canada’s National Ballet School opens new building in Toronto including 12 studios and connected, state-of-art academic block housing eight classrooms as well as science labs, a visual arts studio, photography centre and music room. NBS provides an integrated fulltime academic and ballet program for about 150 students from age 11 to high school graduation. NBS also offers intensive post-secondary ballet instruction as well as a teacher-training program.

NBS alumni dance in major companies around the world and several, such as Karen Kain and Paul Chalmer, have gone on to become artistic directors.
NBS opened in 1959 as an ad-junct of the National Ballet of Canada but since 1961 has been an independent institution. Over the ensuing years the school gradually expanded its facilities but by the early 1990s it was clear it needed more land. Its studios, classrooms and offices were cramped and inadequate. In 2001 NBS acquired adjacent land formerly owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at token cost. The federal and Ontario provincial governments each contributed CDN$ 20 million (14.5 million Euro). NBS has since raised 80% of the remaining CDN$ 60 million required to complete ...