A nonprofit organization serving Southwest Michigan
Kalamazoo
Ballet
Exceptional dance education. Meaningful opportunity. A legacy that continues.
Kalamazoo Ballet Company supports access to dance education, artistic development, and performance opportunities—helping dancers pursue serious training regardless of financial circumstance.
Why We Exist
Opportunity should follow potential.
Talent, dedication, and artistic potential are not determined by a family's ability to pay.
Kalamazoo Ballet Company exists to help remove the financial barriers that can stand between a dancer and meaningful training, performance, and artistic growth.
Through financial assistance, educational opportunities, and support for performance and artistic development, we work to ensure that dancers with the desire and commitment to grow have the opportunity to do so.
Dance education can shape confidence, discipline, artistry, resilience, and possibility. Access to that education should not depend solely on financial circumstance.
Access
Helping reduce financial barriers to consistent, high-quality dance education and training.
Opportunity
Supporting dancers as they pursue performance, advanced training, and meaningful artistic experiences.
Artistic Growth
Investing in the experiences, instruction, and resources that allow dancers to develop their potential.
What We Support
Removing barriers.
Creating opportunity.
Financial circumstances should not determine whether a dancer is able to train consistently, participate fully, or pursue an opportunity that could shape their artistic future.
Dance Tuition
Need-based assistance helps dancers access consistent, high-quality instruction and continue progressing in their training when tuition would otherwise create a barrier.
Pointe Shoes & Training Needs
Pointe shoes and other required training expenses can become significant as dancers advance. Assistance helps ensure that necessary equipment remains accessible.
Company & Performance
Support can help dancers participate fully in company and performance opportunities, so financial circumstance is not what determines who gets to take the stage.
Advanced Opportunities
Assistance may support summer intensives, auditions, master classes, residential training, and other educational experiences that allow committed dancers to pursue the next level of growth.
Assistance is awarded according to the charitable programs and eligibility guidelines established by Kalamazoo Ballet Company. Additional programs may be developed as the organization grows.
Financial Assistance →Working Together
One shared commitment to dancers.
Tye Chua Dance is the home of Kalamazoo Ballet.
The two organizations work alongside one another with a shared commitment to rigorous training, thoughtful artistry, meaningful performance, and access to opportunity.
Each has a distinct role. Tye Chua Dance provides the daily training and artistic environment in which dancers develop, while Kalamazoo Ballet Company supports charitable programs that expand access, participation, and artistic opportunity.
Tye Chua Dance
The training home.
Tye Chua Dance provides classes, faculty, curriculum, student placement, daily training, and the studio environment in which dancers build their technique and artistry.
Kalamazoo Ballet Company
The nonprofit mission.
Kalamazoo Ballet Company supports access to dance education, performance participation, training resources, and artistic opportunities through its charitable programs.
By pairing excellent training with charitable support, Kalamazoo Ballet and Tye Chua Dance can help ensure that dancers are able to participate fully, continue progressing, and pursue opportunities that might otherwise be out of reach.
Kalamazoo Ballet Company and Tye Chua Dance are separate legal entities.
Our Legacy
More than six decades of ballet in Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo Ballet is rooted in a tradition of classical training, performance, and artistry that began in 1965.
In 1970, Kalamazoo Junior Ballet Company was incorporated as a nonprofit organization dedicated to ballet education and performance. Over time, that organization became Kalamazoo Ballet Company.
Today, that history continues through a renewed nonprofit mission: expanding access to meaningful dance education, artistic development, and performance opportunities for dancers in our community.
The beginning
Tye Chua established the Kalamazoo dance tradition that would become home to generations of ballet students and performers.
The nonprofit is incorporated
Kalamazoo Junior Ballet Company was formally incorporated to advance ballet education, artistic development, and performance.
The legacy continues
Kalamazoo Ballet Company carries that mission forward with a renewed focus on access, opportunity, and the future of dancers.
Help Create What Comes Next
Small barriers can change a dancer’s path.
Sometimes the difference between stepping forward and stepping away is surprisingly simple.
A pair of pointe shoes. A semester of tuition. A company fee. An audition. A summer intensive. A chance to perform.
Charitable support helps ensure that financial circumstance is not the deciding factor in whether a dancer can continue training, participate fully, or pursue an opportunity that could shape their future.
A pair of pointe shoes
A necessary tool for advanced ballet training—and a recurring expense that can quickly become significant for families.
A semester of training
Consistent instruction gives dancers the continuity they need to build technique, confidence, and artistic maturity.
A performance opportunity
Taking the stage develops artistry, discipline, collaboration, and the experience that turns training into performance.
A next step
Intensives, auditions, residential programs, and advanced training can open doors that shape a dancer’s future.
Help make opportunity possible.
Individual donors, alumni, families, foundations, and corporate partners all play a role in helping Kalamazoo Ballet expand access to meaningful dance education and artistic opportunity.
Governance & Transparency
Stewarding a legacy with care.
Kalamazoo Ballet Company is an independent nonprofit organization governed by a Board of Directors.
Charitable resources are used to advance the organization’s mission of expanding access to dance education, artistic development, and performance opportunities.
As the organization grows, Kalamazoo Ballet is committed to thoughtful governance, responsible stewardship, and transparency with the dancers, families, donors, and community partners who make its work possible.
Additional information about the Board of Directors, nonprofit governance, public filings, and organizational policies will be available through Kalamazoo Ballet’s Governance & Transparency page.
Governance & Transparency →