Program Overview

The Post-Secondary Program at Canada's National Ballet School focuses on preparing dancers for entry into professional careers and is structured to provide a supportive transition from completion of training to full-time professional practice. Graduates of our Professional Ballet Program and other students who have reached an appropriately advanced level of training may apply for this program.

School Year

Our full-time program runs from September to July. Attendance at our Summer School is mandatory, except for those students selected by the ballet faculty to participate in our Student Exchange Program. Students take a variety of classes including Classical Ballet and Pointe as well as Contemporary Repertoire and Improvisation.

Students in our Post-Secondary Program (both auditioning and returning) are responsible for their own accommodation and meals, though meals are available for purchase in the Mona Campbell Square Café in the Celia Franca Centre.

Open Stage Presentations

Launched at the beginning of the 2007/08 school year, Open Stage is a monthly lecture demonstration series presented by the PSP students, which takes place in The Betty Oliphant Theatre.

An integral part of our Post-Secondary Program, lecture demonstrations give the dancers experience in a wide variety of areas. The students themselves are a fundamental part of the planning process as well as the performers at the event itself. Presentations include both classical and contemporary repertoire and also explore the parameters of improvisation, giving the dancers and audience a platform to be exposed to a variety of movement types.

Erica Horwood in La Sylphide by Cylla von Tiedemann.

"I think at first, like any graduate, I was eager to head off into the dance world right after graduating.  However, the Post-Secondary Program gave us a chance to transition into full days of ballet training, rehearsing and exploring different areas of interest in dance and life that otherwise was not possible in previous years, and also when entering a company might be missed out on. As PSP is set up specifically to help transition dancers into their professional careers, it gave me the opportunity to work with the National Ballet of Canada and the Dutch National Ballet. The year not only helped strengthen me as a dancer while training and performing at the school, but also gave me insight into working with different companies and where I might ultimately want to live and dance in the upcoming years. I am now dancing my first full season with the Dutch National Ballet, and there are still moments when reminiscing with friends that we realize how lucky we were to have spent that year together at NBS before venturing out across the world."

Erica Horwood
Post-Secondary Program graduate; Dancer, Dutch National Ballet