Named in honour of Ken McCarter, an NBS Board Director for eight years, the Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni acknowledges contributions made by NBS alumni across all sectors and disciplines around the globe.
Canada’s National Ballet School is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2023 Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni. This year, we celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of researcher-educator Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt and expert physiatrist Paul Winston.
Class of 1970
Norma Sue Fisher-Stitt is one of this year’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.
“My years at NBS are the absolute foundation of everything I’ve done,” she says. “There are so many personal qualities that are so crucial to success in any field that my years at NBS really instilled in me or made me understand the value of: respecting others, respecting yourself as well, but also resilience.”
From early on in her studies at York University, Norma Sue developed a keen interest in how dance is taught. She championed innovative approaches to improving how we support dance students on their learning journeys, including through early explorations of using digital technology. She emphasizes that dance education and pedagogy is always evolving.
She sees that NBS itself has evolved, too, and encourages alumni from around the world to keep in touch. “It’s a very special place. I always love going back to the School and seeing how it’s changed – it’s amazing to me how much it’s grown, and it’s wonderful!” she says.
“I would just encourage all alumni to come to alumni events and go back to the School. Just be open to all the ways the School has changed, and also to keeping in touch with all your colleagues that you grew up with.
Norma Sue’s advice for current NBS students: Maintaining your confidence in yourself and believing in yourself is so important. In the end, if you follow your path and you have a commitment, things will work out for you. I firmly believe that.
Class of 1989
Paul Winston (class of 1989) is the second recipient of this year’s 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.
As a young medical student following his performance career, Paul was moved by an encounter with a group of physiatrists that showed a deep appreciation for human connection. “Coming from the dance world, that’s what really got it for me,” he says.
“The motto of our specialty is ‘maximizing potential and restoration of function.’ You work with what you have. And that’s one of the things in the dance world: we’re all given a different body type, but as a dance teacher, you try to take whatever is in front of you and you inspire it to be as good as it can be” Paul says.
Paul notes that he’s remained closely in touch with his NBS classmates, many of whom have gone on to careers in the medical field and other professions. He believes that having the freedom of following their passion at a young age, through their NBS education, sets them up for particularly fulfilling life’s work.
“Everyone that I know who went through dance training that I now see as nurses and physiotherapists, as doctors, surgeons, people in accounting and different areas – really nobody regrets it. It really allows them to have a part of their career that really shines and makes them quite unique.”
Paul’s advice for current NBS students: Spend the time making sure you honour your love of dance. See how you can fulfill that, and follow it as long as you know it was the right decision. You will lose no time.
The Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni was created in 2017, and is presented annually at the Professional Ballet-Academic Grade 12 graduation ceremony. Nominations for this award are submitted by members of the NBS community, primarily fellow NBS alumni, to recognize their peers for their commitment and contribution to the betterment of their communities through professional activities.
The award is named for W. Kenneth McCarter, an NBS board director for 8 years. During that time, he held the positions of Vice-Chair and Chair of Nominating and Board Governance and also served on the Finance & Audit and Human Resources Committees. He was also the board representative at the 2016 Global Alumni Symposium. Sadly, Ken passed away in April, 2017 - this award has been created to honour his memory and his commitment to NBS.
In what turned out to be his final year, Ken was the guiding force behind an important initiative that will serve the school into the future: the establishment of the position of chancellor, which was announced at the June, 2017 graduation. The board decided to establish the Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni to honour Ken and connect his name to his abiding interest in the alumni of the School.
Ken attended the 2016 Global Alumni Symposium, after which he gave a compelling address to the Board stating that it, “should be proud of the extremely accomplished alumni of the School … Many have accomplished amazing things and they all have potential to play a role as terrific ambassadors for the School.”
With this in mind, the award in Ken’s name is designed to acknowledge the important contributions to public service made by NBS alumni through a broad range of professional activities
Criteria:
Excellence: the nominee has demonstrated excellence in a chosen field of endeavour
Inspiration: the nominee’s accomplishments will serve as a source of inspiration for current NBS students
Public service: the nominee’s accomplishments have moved the world forward in a meaningful and distinctive way
Impact of NBS Education: the nominee’s chosen career path was influenced by the education received at NBS
Courage: the nominee has shown courage in following a particular path
On and beyond the stage, across Canada and around the world, NBS alumni enrich their communities and break new ground in their chosen fields. The Ken McCarter Award is a way to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next generation of NBS grads.
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.
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. 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.
