Across Canada, Ballet Edmonton is gaining a reputation for being one of the top tier companies fusing traditional ballet with contemporary dance.

Their current Rising Tour, which has been making its way across the nation, has stopped in Calgary as part of Springboard Performance’s Fluid Fest.

Having the ensemble at the festival of dance was a coup given their meteoric rise in fame and prestige over the past half-decade said Nicole Mion, artistic director and executive director at Springboard Performance.

“Fluid Fest has been around for 25 years, and we’ve been featuring international, national, local dance in theatres all through the downtown core and parts of the suburbs. We’re always trying to feature the best and brightest that’s happening, and that could be dance, circus, theatre, anything that really captures the body, expressing something what it means to be in these Times,” she said.

“Everywhere they’re going, they are getting rave reviews and really an observance of enthusiasm, and we wanted to showcase them here. This is the first time they’re performing in Calgary, and it seemed appropriate for the Fluid Fest to honour and feature this beautiful company.”

Peter Smida, rehearsal director and creative associate with Ballet Edmonton said that their tour stop in Calgary featured a triple bill of performances in Hush Hush, choreographed by Kirsten Wicklund, the artistic director for Ballet Edmonton, Night Breath by Ethan Colangelo, and String Theory by Béatrice Larrivée.

Smida said that Hush Hush was a collaboration between the company and an Estonian composer Arvo Pärt that premiered in May of 2025.

“We were looking for pieces of organ music that we were attracted to, and we came across Part’s music, and it was just, it’s just hauntingly beautiful, and then kind of searched around and chose some other selections of his in order to make something really work,” said Smida.

“It kind of draws this line between something very industrial, and then we travel from the industrial, very pedestrian kind of movement to something very much closer to something classical. So classic lines and some just really beautiful duet dancing that happens there.”

The second work, Night Breath, was choreographed by Colangelo for Ballet Edmonton just before his career began to explode in the public eye when he became an associate choreographer with National Ballet Canada.

“He’s now been presenting work all over the world. The music for that work was composed by one of the dancers in the company, Ben Waters, so it truly feels like a very homegrown work. It’s really, really hauntingly beautiful,” said Smida.

The final piece String Theory was the first work composed by Larrivée for a dance company in Canada, after working around the world for the past several years.

“She feels, to me, like she’s sort of on the precipice of really breaking into a larger choreographic career, which sort of was the inspiration for the evening: these rising Canadian voices,” said Smida.

“[String Theory] comes from her experience with the rubber band method, which is a dance form developed in Montreal by Victor Quijada, and also her experience with Gaga, which is a much more sensory based movement practice. However, she has a long history in classical like training of classical ballet. So these, all these worlds sort of come together, and she’s really a master of many different forms of practice.”

Calgary performances of Ballet Edmonton strengthen artistic connections in Alberta

Coming to Calgary for the first time to perform was a big deal for Ballet Edmonton, said Smida.

“We’re really honoured that Fluid Fest, Springboard’s Fluid Fest, has invited us here. The team has been incredibly welcoming, and we also did a collaboration over at Contemporary Calgary while we were here. So, we were very busy while we were here, but it’s been really, really lovely,” he said.

“I think it’s really important to us that we connect with our community here in Alberta. I think that the arts and dance especially are very niche, and I think that we can only become stronger by building our community and sort of knitting ourselves a little tightly together.”

Mion said embracing contemporary dance, especially at the elite level, was one of the special things about Fluid Fest.

“This year’s festival is all about exploring the wonderful and the wondrous. This company, I feel, captures the potential and possibility of a group of people dancing at an elite level and and finding a way to inspire movement and joy in all of us,” she said.

On the gradient of shows being held during the month long festival of dance, Mion said that Ballet Edmonton was on the more accessible side for people who have never taken in a contemporary dance performance before.

“We always have projects like the Cirque Kalabante, which was earlier in the festival, and Ballet Edmonton, which we feel are really accessible. Entry points, excellence and accessibility and a way, if you’re curious, it’s the right kind of entry point into into what dance and contemporary performance can be. I think that if you’re interested in extreme physicality and surprise on stage, and this might be the show for you,” she said.

Ballet Edmonton performs at The Grand on Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at springboardperformance.com/events/rising-tour-ballet-edmonton.

For the entire lineup of Fluid Fest, see springboardperformance.com/programs/fluid-fest-2025.