The idea of personal sponsorship has never really caught on here. As Cassandra says, though, it's common in Canada - and in the US.
One of the problems here is that even where a company may have a "sponsor a dancer" scheme or whatever, they do tend to operate at a corporate level. In practice the cash effectively disappears into a general pot. You finish up not giving to an individual at all.
That's why Cassandra's scholarship idea is rather a good one. You wouldn't necessarily have to do it via a company and thus restrict yourself to one company (although I can imagine may would prefer it that way). A scholarship ensures it stays personal. And I'm sure there must be ways of doing it and not committing to a set figure, if you felt that was how you wanted to do it. I too get the impression you are maybe looking a someone lower down the ranks, maybe even someone freshly graduated from vocational school and who I can imagine would be especially short of funds.
However you decide to proceed, I suspect you may get further with one of the smaller companies. How much contact you can have will depend to some extent on where the dancer is based and where you live, but have you thought about someone with the likes of Northern Ballet, Ballet Black or Ballet Cymru?
And to echo Cassandra again - yes, please, please do tell us how you get on.
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