The Goh Ballet Youth Ensemble

The Goh Ballet Youth Ensemble is Canada's professional youth ballet company. Founded and maintained under the artistic direction of Choo Chiat Goh and Lin Yee Goh, and the governance of the Goh Ballet Vancouver Society, the Ensemble has performed classical, neo-classical, jazz, contemporary and modern works in Vancouver, British Columbia and across the world, including numerous international tours and performances throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Ensemble was begun as a means to provide the Goh Ballet Academy’s graduating Professional Division dancers valuable time in front of discerning audiences, and to prepare them for company life. After dancing with the Youth Ensemble, our dancers’ resumes are filled with local and international awards, and names plucked from the constellations of the international dance scene, such as Eddy Toussaint, Anne-Marie Holmes, Lynn Seymore, Maina Gielgud, James Amar, David Earle, Flemming Ryberg, Nikita Dolgushin and, all in the family, Choo San Goh.

But what started out as a training company has taken on a life of its own, developing a strong following in communities at home and a professional reputation abroad. The Ensemble's reputation is built partly upon the steady stream of dancers who have emerged from the Ensemble to grace stages in the world’s top ballet companies, but even more on the unforgettable, technically explosive, emotionally engaging, classical and classically-inspired, professional performances the Youth Ensemble has staged year after year. The Youth Ensemble now serves not just to prepare dancers for professional careers, but as a challenging and satisfying start to a career, with paid positions and apprenticeships. Youth Ensemble members now range in age from the late teens to dancers in their mid-twenties.

Members of the Youth Ensemble have consistently taken top awards, including, most recently, the top prize at the Prix de Lausanne (2004), medals at the Genée International Competition (Gold in 2005, 2 Silvers in 2006), and the Varna International Competition (Bronze in 2006), among many others. We’re also glad to have Youth Ensemble members who have been recipients of the $10,000 national Hnatyshyn Foundation Developing Artist Grant for developing Canadian Classical Ballet artists in both 2006 and 2007.

In the last few years the Youth Ensemble has headlined numerous times at Vancouver’s largest performance venues, and at other major venues in the Lower Mainland and across British Columbia. We have toured B.C. with nearly 100 performances through the ArtStarts in Schools program (which presents professional arts in schools across the province). We have toured throughout China as cultural ambassadors of Canada, and have performed works personally choreographed and staged for our dancers by luminaries of the national and international dance scene.