Brydon Paige, Artistic Director Emeritus Ballet Divertimento continues to be guided in spirit by the late Brydon Paige,
Ballet Divertimento artistic director from 1996 until his death in 2007.
Born in Vancouver, he moved to Montreal as a young man and danced with Les Ballets Chiriaeff,
a precursor of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. In 1976 he assumed the artistic direction of the Alberta Ballet,
remaining for 12 years, and is credited with transforming it into a professional ballet company.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Mr. Paige choreographed for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet,
the National Ballet of Guatemala, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the National Ballet of Portugal among others.
One of his works, The Wizard of Oz, was created for Ballet Divertimento and remains in the School’s repertoire.
He also served on the faculty of the Banff Centre for the Arts, directed two dance companies and headed the
dance department at Pierre Laporte High School in Montreal.
Susan Alexander, Administrative Director
Born in New Brunswick, Susan Alexander studied arts and commerce at Concordia University in Montreal.
With a passion for dance, she continued to study ballet as an avocation, with such notable teachers as Sheila Ross
and Rudolf Kharatian. Ms. Alexander developed her management skills as operations manager for a Montreal
international shipping company, and formed Ballet Divertimento in 1991. Since then, she has devoted herself entirely
to guiding the School’s development, including such initiatives as the Dance-Study program. Her mission is to
continue to widen the scope of training available to aspiring dancers and provide them with a fertile environment in
which to germinate their talent. In 2003 Ms. Alexander co-founded with Alexandra Wells of the Julliard School the
critically acclaimed Springboard Montréal Danse project held each summer at the School.
Yamandu Delgado, Pedagogical Director
Born in Uruguay, Ballet Divertimento’s dynamic director of pedagogy underwent rigorous training to become a
ballet teacher at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart, Germany. He first studied ballet at the National Ballet in
Montevideo before dancing professionally with the Ballet Company of Montevideo and the Ballet del Teatro
Municipal in Santiago, Chile. Over the past two decades he has taught at two Austrian ballet schools, the
Landeshaupt Stadt in St. Poelten and the Ballettschule der Wiener Statsoper in Vienna, as well as for the
Hochschule
für musik und theater in Zurich, Switzerland. Mr. Delgado was appointed pedagogical director in October 2006.
Alex Ursuliak, Artistic Consultant
Born in Canada, Alex Ursuliak began his dance career with a diploma from the Pedagogical Theatre Institute in
Kiev, Ukraine. He went on to both perform with and teach for the National Ballet of Canada and the Stuttgart Ballet.
Mr. Ursuliak is past director of the Ballet School of the Vienna State Opera and the John Cranko School in Stuttgart,
and has accepted positions as guest teacher for major companies around the world. A prolific choreographer,
Alex Ursuliak has created and staged works for numerous companies, and rehearsed some of the most celebrated
artists of our time, including Natalya Makarova, Martine Van Hamel, Veronica Tennant, Rudolf Nureyev and Erik Bruhn.
