Nadia Potts Interview

We love Nadia Potts. She began studying dance at age seven with Betty Oliphant and went on to train at Canada’s National Ballet School. In 1966, at age 18, she joined the National Ballet of Canada and, three years later was promoted to principal dancer, a position she held for the next 17 years. Nadia toured extensively, both with the National Ballet and as a guest artist throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe. She was partnered by many of the most renowned dancers of her time including Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn, Peter Martins, Anthony Dowell, Fernando Bujones, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, who chose her to dance in his debut of Erik Bruhn’s Swan Lake. After retiring from the stage, Nadia launched into a full-time teaching career and in 1989 became a professor and director of the Dance Program at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University), a position she held for 24 years.