Dancers take the stage from May 20-23, 2026

 

Since 1959, Canada’s National Ballet School’s Spring Showcase has been a treasured tradition, offering a glimpse into the extraordinary talent of the School's Professional Ballet Program students. This annual celebration brings ballet’s rich legacy to life—blending classical masterpieces with bold contemporary works, all performed by the next generation of dance artists. 

 

Presented on The Anna McCowan-Johnson Stage in Canada’s National Ballet School's Betty Oliphant Theatre, the Spring Showcase is a unique opportunity for arts-lovers in Toronto to experience the inspiring passion and talent young dance artists bring to the stage. 

We are thrilled to announce the choreographers for Spring Showcase 2026!

 

 

John Alleyne

Canada’s National Ballet School's 2026 Spring Showcase will feature John Alleyne’s expressive work Schubert. First created for Ballet BC in 2000, the piece unfolds in soulful long extended choreographic sequences, driven by discordant harmonies and syncopation. The work is an act of play; an act of sorrow; an act of movement that is in reality how we are in the world. We are thrilled for our Professional Ballet Program students to have the opportunity to bring this esteemed work by John Alleyne, a renowned choreographer, dancer, artistic leader, and NBS Alum, to the School's Anna McCowan-Johnson Stage this Spring. 

 

About John Alleyne

Born in Barbados, John immigrated to Canada with his family in 1965. He was accepted to Canada’s National Ballet School’s (NBS) Professional Ballet Program, joining in 1971 as the first Black Canadian student at the School.
 
After graduating from NBS in 1978, he joined the Stuttgart Ballet where he began his choreographic career. John returned to Canada in 1984 and joined The National Ballet of Canada as a First Soloist, accepting the position as the company’s resident choreographer from 1990 to 1992. John was appointed Artistic Director of Ballet BC in 1992. His leadership marked the beginning of a creative and prosperous period in the company's history. John implemented assertive outreach strategies for strengthening the company’s identity locally, nationally and internationally.
 
A number of internationally respected companies, festivals and institutions have commissioned new choreography from John. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards acknowledging his outstanding contribution to the world of dance, including the first-ever honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Simon Fraser University (2003), the Exceptional Achievement Award in the Performing Arts from the Black Historical and Cultural Society of British Columbia (2005), the African-Canadian Achievement Award for Excellence in the Arts and Entertainment (2016), among many others.

 

John Alleyne is also the Artistic Advisor, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Canada’s National Ballet School. 

 

 

 

George Balanchine

This year's Spring Showcase will include George Balanchine's energetic work Tarantella. Choreographed in 1964, this brief but explosive pas de deux exemplifies the manner in which Balanchine expanded the traditional vocabulary of classical ballet. The quantity of steps, the speed and agility of movement required, provides a virtuosic showcase for our aspiring NBS dancers.  Last performed by NBS dancers in 1996, we are thrilled to bring this back to the stage!

 

 

About George Balanchine

George Balanchine transformed the world of ballet. He is widely regarded as the most influential choreographer of the 20th century, and he co-founded two of ballet's most important institutions: New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet. Balanchine was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1904, studied at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, and danced with the Maryinsky Theatre Ballet Company, where he began choreographing short works. In the summer of 1924, Balanchine left the newly formed Soviet Union for Europe, where he was invited by impresario Serge Diaghilev to join the Ballets Russes.

 

For that company, Balanchine choreographed his first important ballets: Apollo [1928] and Prodigal Son I1929]. After Ballets Russes was dissolved following Diaghilev's death in 1929, Balanchine spent his next few years on a variety of projects in Europe and then formed his own company, Les Ballets 1933, in Paris. There, he met American arts connoisseur Lincoln Kirstein, who persuaded him to come to the United States. In 1934, the pair founded the School of American Ballet, which remains in operation to this day, training students for companies around the world. Balanchine's first ballet in the U.S., Serenade, set to music by Tschaikovsky, was created for SAB students and premiered on June 9, 1934, on the grounds of an estate in White Plains. Balanchine and Kirstein founded several short-lived ballet companies before forming Ballet Society in 1946, which was renamed New York City Ballet in 1948. Balanchine served as the Company's ballet master from that year until his death in 1983, building it into one of the most important  performing arts institutions  in the world, and a cornerstone  of the cultural life of New York City.

 

He choreographed 425 works over the course of 60-plus years, and his musical choices ranged from Tschaikovsky [one of his favorite composers] to Stravinsky [his compatriot and friend] to Gershwin [who embodied the choreographer's love of America]. Many of Balanchine's works are considered masterpieces and are performed by ballet companies all over the world.

 

Biography courtesy of the New York City Ballet.
Photo by Tanaquil LeClercq.
BALANCHINE is a trademark of The George Balanchine Trust.

 

 

 

Peggy Baker

Coming to the stage at Spring Showcase is a revival of Peggy Baker’s remarkable 1992 solo, Brahms Waltzes. Peggy Baker is one of Canada’s most celebrated and influential dance artists, and we are honoured to have her working with our students on this performance project. The deep and complex emotions of a young woman poised on the threshold of great change are captured in this early work by one of the country’s most prominent female choreographic voices.

 

 

About Peggy Baker

Peggy Baker is one of Canada’s most celebrated and influential dance artists, respected as a performer in the work of esteemed Canadian and American creators; as an educator in conservatory dance programs throughout North America; and as a choreographer of potent and visually striking works for her Toronto based company, Peggy Baker Dance Projects (1990 – 2023) with presentation in theatres, galleries, public spaces and on media screens across Canada and the U.S., as well as Mexico, Argentina, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Korea, and Japan. Among her many awards: The Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Award and The Carsen Prize.

 

Photo by Aleksandar Antonjevic

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silas Farley

The 2026 Spring Showcase presents the premiere of Werner Quintet by renowned choreographer Silas Farley, in partnership with The Royal Conservatory of Music. This exciting new creation features dancers from NBS’ Professional Ballet Program and musicians from The Glenn Gould School and The Taylor Academy. 

 

With a shared commitment to providing best-in-class training and experiences for exceptional young artists, Canada’s National Ballet School and The Royal Conservatory come together to offer a compelling experience for Toronto audiences and lay the foundation for future collaborations. 

 

 

About Silas Farley

Silas Farley is a ballet teacher and choreographer. He currently serves as the Armstrong Artist in Residence in Ballet in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas.

 

Farley is a former dancer with New York City Ballet and former Dean of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute at The Colburn School in Los Angeles, California.

 

He has taught and choreographed for the School of American Ballet, Peabody Conservatory, the Kennedy Center, The Washington Ballet, Houston Ballet, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was an inaugural Jerome Robbins Dance Division Research Fellow at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. He is the writer and host of the NYCB podcast, Hear The Dance. He has written for Dance Magazine and Dance Index and lectured on ballet at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and the Museum of Modern Art. He serves on the Board of The George Balanchine Foundation.  

 

 

NBS' Spring Showcase presents the premiere of Silas Farley's Werner Quintet, in partnership with: