CriticalDance Forum

I've always wondered why are there so many more American ballet companies in comparison to Canada?
Besides the most obvious reason being that Canada doesn't have enough money in the government for the arts.
Is ballet more popular in the United States than in Canada?
One thing I've also noticed is that in the US they tend to advertise their dance schools more.If you look in Dance Magazine, many schools in the US have a national audition tour. They travel across the country in 10-20 cities holding auditions for their summer sessions.While in Canada only RWBS,NBS and the Quinte Ballet School have audition tours in comparison to the numerous amount of schools that do in the United States.

The simple reason is that the USA has almost 10 times the population of Canada. So it's only natural to expect 10 times as many ballet companies and schools as well.

Vancouver has a population approaching 4 million, whereas Seattle has a population of 1/2 million ( a little misleading because it does not include the surrounding cities - Bellevue, Tacoma, etc - but still not close to 4 million ), but Pacific Northwest Ballet is a much larger company than BalletBC. I suspect part of this is because of the private donations here, a good part are the Seattle Artistic directors' vision, and the establishment of a school, but still I can't see why Vancouver can't support a large company. they have a nice venue ( Queen Elizabeth Theatre ), a great downtown, and from what I have seen, usually near sold out performances.
Interesting, they are both doing Carmina Burana this month. Should be fun to comapre and contrast.

I agree with you Matthew,

I think Vancouver should have a company and school like PNB does.There are a lot of students there that do half-day training programs in about a half dozen different schools but there is no classical ballet company for them to go into in Vancouver.Ballet BC is a good company but it has a much more modern repitoire than RWB or NBOC.

LA has a population of 14 million and it doesn't really have a ballet company either. The number of ballet companies isn't a fixed ratio of the population for any given city. But as you average over entire countries, you will expect a lot more American than Canadian companies.