North Star Ballet

The North Star Dance Foundation/ North Star Ballet was established as a non-profit in 1980 to bring outstanding classical dance instruction, choreography, and performance to Interior Alaska. Our complementary missions of education and performance provide artistic opportunities for both dancers and audiences.

Since 1980 the North Star Dance Ballet has been a core cultural organization in Fairbanks. It specializes in a comprehensive eight–year curriculum in ballet for young and adult students and progressive creative movement classes that introduce 4 -8 year olds to the fundamental concepts of dance and music. It is also a center of physical activity, helping students to develop a pattern of healthy living that they can carry with them through their lives.

The quality of our School is reflected in the number of Alumni who have graduated to successful careers in modern dance and ballet companies, in television and film, and as dance teachers. Others have used their experience and the confidence, self-discipline, and focus they learned, as a pathway to success in the sciences, engineering, education, and a host of other careers.

Our Company provides the opportunity for our students to perform in high quality ballet productions. Our repertoire includes the Nutcracker, six other full-length ballets, and twenty shorter classical and contemporary works. For performances, almost 130 volunteers donate more than 2,000 hours of their expertise in the front of the house, back stage, and in the preparation of costumes and sets.

The combination of well-trained dancers, high-quality costumes and sets, and the expertise of our volunteers and stage crews result in professional-caliber classical ballet productions for the residents of Interior Alaska. The quality of these performances is reflected in the Company's production of The Nutcracker having been chosen as the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner's “Best Theater Production of the year” in 7 of the last 10 years.

We work hard to integrate our mission with a solid and diversified income stream and are sustained through a mix of 65% earned revenue, 33% donations and fundraisers, 2% government grants, and facilitated by almost 2,200 hours of service provided by 130 volunteers.

For more than three decades the North Star Ballet has been an integral part of the Interior's cultural life through its school and performances, by hosting public workshops with visiting dancers and choreographers, and by collaborating with other arts organizations in Fairbanks. For more than three decades we have passionately followed a single course – to provide the best possible classical dance education, choreography, and performance for Alaska's Interior. We have succeeded because of the generous support and talent of the Fairbanks community.