Professional Performances

The Vancouver Goh Ballet Production and Touring Company was established nearly 30 years ago by Choo Chiat Goh and Lin Yee Goh, in conjunction with the Vancouver Goh Ballet Society. With numerous corporate and individual sponsors and benefactors throughout the years, the Ensemble has developed a large and dedicated audience, allowing it to stage critically-acclaimed, well-attended concerts every year – in Vancouver, throughout British Columbia, and across the globe.

In the 2006-2007 season alone, the Ensemble will perform nearly 80 shows, making it one of the most active classical ballet performing groups in Canada. While the Ensemble is, in one sense, a training institution created to give serious young ballet dancers a career edge in the extremely competitive ballet world – its members are, year-after-year, at least as decorated and celebrated as those of most professional dance companies. In fact, most major dance companies the world over have a Goh Ballet graduate in their ranks.

In the last year (as well as for many years running), Goh Ballet Ensemble members have taken top honours at all the biggest international ballet competitions (for students, as well as professionals), such as the U.S. National Dance Alliance Competition (First Place), Varna International Competition (Bronze), and the Genée International Competition (2 Silvers). In the Genée competition’s 75 year history, only 6 Canadians have ever taken home medals – all of whom were from the Goh Ballet Ensemble (including 2005 Gold medal winner, Céline Gittens, who in 2006 joined the Royal Birmingham Ballet). In addition to international awards, the Ensemble also went on two international tours in 2006 and won over 3 dozen local and provincial awards, as well as local, provincial and national scholarships.

While the Ensemble has been steadily growing and maturing, its prowess has grown especially in the last few years, attracting the attention and collaboration of numerous local and international institutions and individuals. This year the Ensemble partnered with Tourism Whistler (with several nights of performances of the Nutcracker in Christmas 2006), and we hope to form many other synergistic partnerships as the Ensemble positions itself to showcase British Columbia’s best and brightest as Vancouver hosts the world for the Olympics in 2010.

In the run-up to these events, this last June the Ensemble presented a full-length performance of the technically difficult and artistically rich audience favourite, Giselle.