Principal Dancer with The National Ballet of Canada and The Suzanne Farrell Ballet

Chan Hon Goh is one of the leading stars with both The National Ballet of Canada (Toronto, Ontario) and The Suzanne Farrell Ballet (Washington, DC, U.S.A.).

"Pale as Meissen china, Chan Hon Goh is the quintessential ballerina. She embodies the romantic spirit of a bygone age. To watch her dance is to understand something of the essence of flight. To experience her purity of musical expression to know something about the way poetry makes movement into metaphor."
(Gary Smith, Dance International Magazine, 1999)

Chan Hon Goh is one of North America’s foremost ballerinas, a gifted artist that is recognized around the world for her incredible dancing ability, delicate beauty and dramatic power. She has been a Principal Dancer with The National Ballet of Canada for more than ten years and brings fantastic technical confidence, a radiant stage presence and emotional depth to the many and varied roles she performs.

Ms Goh was born in Beijing, China where she resided with her parents, both Principal Dancers with the National Ballet of China, until the age of eight. After immigrating to Canada, Chan Hon Goh received her dance training in Vancouver, British Columbia at the Goh Ballet Academy. She studied at her parent’s dance school before joining The National Ballet of Canada in 1988 in the Corps de Ballet. She rapidly progressed to Second Soloist in 1990, First Soloist in 1992 and Principal Dancer in 1994.

As one of The National Ballet's most exquisite Principal Dancers, Chan Hon Goh dances numerous Principal roles in the National Ballet’s repertoire: Odette/Odile in Swan Lake; Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty; the Sylph in La Sylphide; Nikiya in La Bayadère; Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, the title role in Giselle; the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Snow Queen in The Nutcracker; Lise in La Fille Mal Gardée; Kitri in Don Quixote; Titania in The Dream; the title role in Cinderella and Cio Cio San in Madame Butterfly. She has also danced lead roles in: James Kudelka’s Désir; Jiri Kylian’s Forgotten Land; John Neumeier’s Now and Then; August Bournonville’s Napoli; Natalia Makarova's Paquita; Glen Tetley’s La Ronde; Jerome Robbin's Afternoon of a Faun; George Balanchine's Jewels, Mozartiana, Apollo and others.

Chan Hon Goh was invited to dance with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet as Principal Dancer in 2001. She has toured extensively with the Company in the United States, performing numerous Balanchine works for audiences all across the country.

Now in her fifth season working with Ms Farrell, Ms Goh has had the privilege of dancing works that were originally created for Ms Farrell by Mr. Balanchine as well as other Balanchine repertoire: Mozartiana; Chaconne; Meditation; Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux; Serenade; Scotch Symphony; La Sonnambula; Apollo; Raymonda Variations; Divertimento #15.

In addition to her regular seasonal performances as Principal Dancer with The National Ballet of Canada and The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, Ms Goh also frequently performs as a Guest Artist with major ballet companies in Europe, Australia, North America and Asia.

In 2005, Ms Goh received the “New Pioneers Arts Award” for her contributions to Arts and Culture in Canada.