Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni

Veronica Tennant is one of the 2024 Ken McCarter Award laureates. Prima Ballerina, Director/Producer, Filmmaker, and Author joined the National Ballet Company as Principal Dancer dancing Juliet, on graduating from the National Ballet School as one of its earliest students. For 25 years, she won hearts and accolades for her dramatic talents, performing with such luminaries as Erik Bruhn, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Karen Kain is a 2024 laureate of the Ken McCarter Award. An internationally renowned ballet dancer and the longest-serving Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada (NBoC), a role she held from 2005 to 2021.

Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt is one of 2023's recipients of the Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni. Throughout her career as a teacher, author and researcher, Norma Sue has both helped preserve Canada’s unique dance history and explored innovative new ways to share the art form.

Paul Winston (class of 1989) is the second recipient of the 2023 Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni. Paul draws on the joy of dance and movement in his work as an expert physiatrist, where he contributes to world-renowned innovations that help people with neurologic movement disorders.

Aszure Barton is an award-winning choreographer who, for over 25 years, has created work that explores themes of human connection and physical form in surprising, touching, irreverent, and joyful ways. Her work is formed by the deep bonds she makes with dancers and a laser-like attention to detail that reveals the inherent wisdom of the body.

Born in Kristianstad Sweden, Johan Persson began his dance training at the Royal Swedish Ballet School before attending Canada’s National Ballet School in 1983 where he trained until 1990. It was at NBS that he was first introduced to photography in academic courses offered at the School.

Miriam Weinstein Adams is a hugely influential figure in Canadian dance history, creating ground-breaking projects and partnerships that shape the way we view, practice, and document the art form.

Jason Beechey is a global leader in creating opportunities for young dancers-in-training and a powerful advocate for the broad social relevance of dance-training institutions. As Rector of the Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, Beechey offered singular leadership during COVID-19, developing some of the first protocols that positioned dance-training institutions around the world to successfully reopen after initial lockdowns. Reflecting on his time at NBS: “My time at NBS still continues, but if I had to pick a favourite memory from my student days, it would be all the time spent with classmates and teachers who have become my extended family. The bonds keep growing tighter and tighter as the years go by. It has been a challenging year to say the least, but it has been great to see how the dance world has grown even closer together and given new value and meaning to being part of a close-knit and supportive community. We are all human, we are all in this together, and the more we can learn from each other and share our experiences, the richer and stronger we all are.” Photo by Ida Zenna

Emily Molnar, CM is an internationally respected and critically acclaimed dance artist, choreographer, mentor, arts advocate and leader. She has served as Artistic Director for Ballet BC since 2009, and will soon transition to her new role as Artistic Director of the Nederlands Dans Theater. After graduating from Canada’s National Ballet School in 1989, Molnar pursued a performance career as a member of the National Ballet of Canada, a soloist with the Ballett Frankfurt, and a principal dancer with Ballet BC. As a dance artist and choreographer, she has worked and toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Mexico, Canada and the U.S., where she created works for Ballet BC, Alberta Ballet, Ballet Mannheim, Ballet Augsburg, Cedar Lake Dance, ProArteDanza and Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company and New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, among others. As a leader and advocate for dance, she has served as Artistic Director of Dance at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and for six years sat on the Board of Directors at the BC Arts Council.

Dr. Kali Barrett, MD, MSc, FRCPC, is a critical care physician at Toronto Western Hospital, at the University Health Network, and her research is focused on value-based delivery of critical care programs, and evidence-based policy development.

Michael Greyeyes is a Canadian actor, director, choreographer and educator. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at York University and a member of the Muskeg Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dr. Lisbet Hanson has been practicing obstetrics and gynecology in Virginia Beach for more than 30 years. Dr. Hanson graduated from Canada’s National Ballet School in 1973 and pursued a career in professional dance, taught ballet and graduated in 1982 from the University of Vermont/College of Medicine where she obtained her BA and her MD.

David Nixon has had a long and distinguished career as a dancer, choreographer and artistic director. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Northern Ballet Theatre, a position he has held since 2001. Under his leadership, the company has flourished as a result of his deep commitment to his dancers; his efforts to expand the repertoire through his own critically acclaimed choreography and the commissioning of new work by other choreographers; and an extensive touring program that has successfully expanded the audience for dance in the United Kingdom. Through the expansion of Northern Ballet’s classical training programs, he has also worked tirelessly to ensure the formation of the next generation of dancers. He is the recipient of many awards for both his choreography and his artistic direction, and in 2010 was awarded an OBE for his services to dance.

James Kudelka is an internationally recognized choreographer who needs no introduction to anyone interested in dance in Canada. In selecting Kudelka, what the Committee took into consideration besides his distinguished and internationally recognized career as a choreographer of both ballet and contemporary dance, is the fact that he received his ballet training at NBS and began exploring his interests in choreography at the School at a very young age. In addition, the Committee noted that James had a successful career as a dancer before devoting himself to choreography, was the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada for many years, and has recently applied his fertile creative imagination to theatre direction. Since 2015, he has been regularly guest teaching at NBS so his success not only reflects well on NBS but he has also been contributing directly to the future success of current NBS students.

Dr. Kalia is a graduate of NBS and had a brief career as a dancer. On retiring from dance, she pursued her interests in movement through serious academic study. She is currently a clinician scientist and assistant professor in the Division of Neurology, University of Toronto with appointments at the Krembil Research Institute, Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, and Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology. She is also a movement disorders neurologist at the Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network. Her clinical work and research program focus on improving the understanding and treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. In selecting Kalia, the Committee was particularly moved by the fact that her interests have come full circle as she now has a major interest in exploring the benefits of dance for people with Parkinson’s.