Carolina Ballet in the Triangle region was not only needed but desired as well. Robert Weiss, former principal dancer with New York City Ballet and past artistic director of Pennsylvania Ballet, was selected in April 1997 as the founding artistic director of the new professional company, known as Carolina Ballet, Inc. Dancers of the Carolina Ballet, as of April 2016: Carolina Ballet Carolina Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1997 which performs primarily in Raleigh, North Carolina and throughout the state. It has toured to New York City, Hungary and China. Robert Weiss, the artistic director, danced for George Balanchine for
Kansas City Ballet company, its school, and its staff are all housed in, operate from, and rehearse at the Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity, a renovated, seven-studio, office, and rehearsal facility in Kansas City, Missouri that opened in August 2011. The company performs at and is the resident ballet company at the nearby Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, a performance venue in downtown Kansas City that opened in September 2011. In April 2018, KCB presented its "60th Anniversary Dance Festival", performing six new works over the course of two weeks. In 1957, Tatiana Dokoudovska founded the Kansas City Ballet (KCB)