— Kanji Segawa, New York-based Dancer / Teacher / Choreographer
Metropolitan Ballet Company is the nonprofit pre-professional dance company affiliated with Metropolitan Ballet Academy. In 2001, MBC was founded with the mission of providing scholarships for dance training, performance training for pre-professional dancers, and outreach programs designed to promote a love and appreciation of dance in our community and its training has been acknowledged as producing some of the finest dancers in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Our programs are thriving. MBC has been recognized as the pre-eminent regional classical dance company in our community. We are proud to share these accomplishments with you.
MBC currently provides more than 50 children ages 7–18 with tuition-free dance training
MBC provides performance opportunities for 35 classically trained dancers, both boys and girls, who are working towards or considering a career in the performing arts
MBC provides approximately 1,000 children and seniors with free access to a live cultural performance each year through outreach performances at local elementary schools and retirement communities
MBC is a full performing member of Regional Dance America (RDA), a national association of ballet companies. Alumni of this prestigious organization include Philadanco, Boston Ballet and Princeton Ballet.
MBC has won corporate, state, and foundation support for the Company and its programs.
In addition to our core programs of performance training, scholarship, and outreach, we partner each year with neighboring organizations such as Settlement Music School and Temple University Opera Theater and often have the opportunity to link with the wider cultural institutions of the area. Last season, 54 MBC dancers performed in Pennsylvania Ballet’s 2007 production of The Nutcracker; Boys’ Scholarship student Peter Weil performed as the young protagonist, Oliver Percy, in Pennsylvania Ballet’s June 2008 premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Carnival of the Animals; and MBC was honored to perform on both the Friday Concert and the Saturday Gala performances of the Regional Dance America Festival in Dayton, Ohio.