How can we make art a language that people already speak? what makes you want to come to the theater? You can’t see this anywhere else, not on Netflix and not with any other ballet company in the world.
— Matthew Denis, The Register-Guard
eugene weekly cover story 12/5/19 (photo: greg burns)

eugene weekly cover story 12/5/19 (photo: greg burns)

Ballet Fantastique (BFan) is a powerhouse for inventive dance theater in the Northwest. Established in 2000, BFan re-imagines the future of dance—building inclusive new audiences through contemporary ballet premieres (Company), training a diverse next generation of artists (Academy), and inspiring youth through education programs that reach across traditional access barriers to reach underserved communities (Outreach).

BFan combines art, innovation, live music— creating bold, visionary new dance theater.  BFan has been heralded “a bold, cross-disciplinary dance company” (Eugene Weekly) and “imaginative geniuses” (Portland Monthly), and featured in The Washington PostEugene's Ballet Fantastique presents a full season of original performances at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon annually as a proud Resident Company, as well as touring throughout the Northwest and internationally.

BFan is led by founding mother-daughter team Donna and Hannah Bontrager, who create the Company’s repertoire as resident choreographer-producers. BFan's genre-defying all-original contemporary ballet premieres include 100+ original works and 50 full-length narrative contemporary ballet premieres since 2007—including a rock opera ballet version of Cinderella, a Roaring 20's Parisian jazz version of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, a Wild West spin on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the first-ever authorized ballet version of Zorro® with the LA-based band Incendio...and many more. BFan has forged new cross-disciplinary collaborations with sculptors, choirs, opera and soloist vocalists, symphony and chamber orchestras, literary and visual artists, actors, break dancers, circus artists, and composers from our Northwest home and across the world.

BFan's City Center for Dance opened in 2010, and holds classes, company rehearsals, and showcases year round in downtown Eugene.

Get ready for ballet like you've never seen it before. We'll see you soon.

Donna & Hannah Bontrager
Producer-Choreographers, Ballet Fantastique