Ballet BC at Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Come and witness a night of dramatic, contemporary, breathtaking and boundary-pushing ballet! Ballet BC performs a repertoire of contemporary ballet collaborating with top Canadian and international artists. Be bold, be innovative, celebrate life as movement! The Company’s distinctive style and approach has given it valuable influence in the world of dance in Canada. An globally acclaimed collaborative and creation-based contemporary ballet company that is a leader in the creation, production and instruction of contemporary dance in Canada. Dance is a universal communication tool that crosses cultures, generations, and other social entities sometimes thought of as being in opposition. Like all art forms, dance can create space for discussion across differences. Dance can be used not only to inspire, provoke, and energize, but also to challenge and build a stronger community. Ballet BC’s dancers are a group of open-minded and curious artists, each unique for their vibrant movement while sharing an instinctive passion for dance.

Ballet BC Tickets

Ballet BC’s seeks to creatively push the limits of ballet

Ballet BC’s dancers are insightful, committed and constantly curious

Ballet BC regularly performs at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre (QET) in the fall, winter and spring. Also touring provincially, nationally and internationally, and as a counterpart to the repertoire and activities of the Company, each season they invite a guest company to perform the Nutcracker. Ballet BC are a company that aims to create dance at its most essential: visceral, powerful, challenging, thought provoking and transformative. As a company Ballet BC produce between five and ten brand new shows each season, collaborating with admired Canadian and international choreographers. Almost all of these will be World Premiere, North American Premiere or Canadian Premiere so you are guaranteed a brand-new, never before seen experience each and every time you come to Ballet BC.

Founded in 1986 as Ballet British Columbia by Jean Orr, David Y. H. Lui and Sheila Begg, with Annette av Paul as first Artistic Director. After some restructuring and a name change in 2009, Ballet BC has been under the leadership of Artistic Director Emily Molnar, a former member of The National Ballet of Canada, Ballet BC and the Ballett Frankfurt, the Company actively fosters collaborations that support artists, choreographers and audiences alike, furthering the boundaries of contemporary dance. The company embraces excellence in the practice of contemporary ballet, with its wide diversity of technique and style, honoring its roots and different elements. In 2019, the Company was nominated for an Olivier Award for “Best New Dance Production” for their tour to Sadler’s Wells in London, which featured Solo Echo by Crystal Pite, 16 + a room by Emily Molnar, and Bill by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar. The Company presents a diverse catalogue of Canadian and international work from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and is a hotbed for the creation and performance of new works. Since 2009, the Company has developed a repertoire of more than 45 new works by acclaimed Canadian and international choreographers including William Forsythe, Cayetano Soto, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Medhi Walerski, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Johan Inger, Adi Salant, Emanuel Gat, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Jacopo Godani, Company 605, Jorma Elo, Wen Wei Wang, Itzik Galili, Serge Bennathan, Walter Matteini, José Navas, Serge Bennathan, Emily Molnar, Lesley Telford, Nicolo Fonte, Fernando Hernando Magadan, Kevin O’Day, Shawn Hounsell, Gioconda Barbuto, Simone Orlando, Robert Glumbek and Aszure Barton among others.

BC Ballet Reviews

“How does Sharon Eyal do it? It’s rare enough for a choreographer to create a few moments—even a few seconds—of dance that feels unlike anything ever seen before. Eyal, a veteran of Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, has made an entire piece like that: the mesmerizing, mysterious, gorgeous “Bedroom Folk,” which Ballet BC performed at Jacob’s Pillow.
Moving en masse across the stage like a many-celled organism, the 14 dancers find new ways to locomote—with a series of tiny prances or impossibly deep plies, as their hands flutter beside their temples or are held cupped beneath one eye, as if to catch falling tears. When one dancer tries to break away from the group, he’s quickly sucked into the circle again—and as a warning or perhaps a welcome back, another dancer bites him all over, from his neck down to his ankles. There is no moment or movement in this piece that isn’t a surprise, and that is a singular achievement.
Molnar’s “To this day,” set to Jimi Hendrix classics, is a big, generous, exciting new work, but next to “Bedroom Folk,” it looks a little comfortable and predictable. It’s an embodiment of Hendrix’s loose, powerful riffs: The dancers slide and leap and run across the floor, limbs whirling, and wrap themselves around each other in languorous duets. At one point, a single dancer (Scott Fowler) takes the pelvis- and shoulder-focused undulations to over-the-top heights in a silent solo. This is what every Hendrix fan imagines they look like while in the grip of the music.”
– Tresca Weinstein, Times Union. Ballet BC opens Pillow season with a bang 2019

“Dressed in dark, rumpled costumes by Kate Burrows, the 13 dancers run and slide and grapple, diving fearlessly into lifts and turns. They sprint on and slide, wide-legged, whip through turns or leap into the air, stiff-legged. A soloist dips and squirms through flowing shapes, sinking to the floor and picking himself up again, abs first. Others run on and freeze, stopping dead in sprint positions, fanned out across the stage. It’s a dance full of impulses and reactions, introspective in tone, suggesting a need for both community and independence. Movement is interrupted, recoiling on itself and surging forward again. Soloists are pushed away and return, patterns forming and reforming around them. Some of the gestures look like conversation. Two opposed groups face each other, with a chattering rhythm when the leaders point to faces, hips and hands. Like the music, Solo Echo is both spare and lush.”
– Zoë Anderson, The Independent. Ballet BC, Sadler’s Wells 2018.

Ballet BC pushes the boundaries of classical ballet with a cutting-edge, contemporary sensibility and “gorgeous energy” – The Independent

“physically rigorous, dramatically solid, and truly contemporary” – Dance Magazine