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This Canadian company is classical to the core.
Before 2001, no local professional ballet company existed in Canada's Atlantic provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Balletomanes living there had to be content with tours that came through the region every few years. That was before Igor Dobrovolskiy created the Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada.
Recognizing the need for a ballet company on Canada's Atlantic seaboard, Dobrovolskiy and co-founder and administrator Susan Chalmers-Gauvin teamed up to secure the backing of their regional government, which contributed $120,000 as part of a new cultural policy. Since ABTC's first production of Dobrovolskiy's Figaro in 2002, the company has garnered praise across Canada and beyond and proved itself to be "the little company that could."
Dobrovolskiy's vision of a small, highly professional ballet company featuring his original, classical choreography became a reality almost unexpectedly...