Ballet Teacher Victoria Santaguida on the Future of the Performing Arts

Moving smoothly as air, professional dancer Victoria Santaguida leaps into and lands gracefully with a flourish, finishing her complicated dance routine. The Canadian ballet dancer is one of the few immigrants in the US with the much-coveted artist visa, and she has had to prove her craft to be worthy of it.

As a dancer who has been training since the age of three, Victoria has overcome countless struggles in the pursuit of her career, including countless rejections from various productions and a potentially career-ending injury in 2018. Now, she and the entire performing arts community are facing their biggest hurdle yet — the pandemic.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Victoria Santaguida began training competitively at the age of three under ballet master teacher Sheona Bell. Her talent has won her dance competitions from the age of six. As a young dancer, she was privileged enough to attend summer training programs at The Juilliard School, the National Ballet of Canada, Ballet Hispanico, and the Joffrey Ballet School. Because of her dedication to the arts and years of practice, she has completed up to the advanced II level of ballet examinations of the renowned Cecchetti technique.

In 2013, she moved to New York City to dance with the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group (now known as the New York Dance Project) for three seasons. She then went on to dance with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, a revolutionary dance company working to change the status quo of the dance industry. Under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, she toured and performed internationally in Jamaica, Switzerland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and across the United States. In 2017, she joined Nimbus Dance in Jersey City under the direction of Samuel Pott and is currently still a company member. Victoria fought hard to be a part of these companies, as becoming a professional dancer in the US is in itself a challenge. With so many talented performers in every genre of dance but only so few jobs, companies are hard-pressed to select only the cream of the crop.

In 2018, Victoria suffered a severe ankle injury. Doctors doubted her ability to recover and dance again. Luckily, she had a supportive network of family, friends, mentors, and teachers who were there to encourage recovery. Victoria was back on stage in just two months — even doctors were amazed.

Victoria’s training covers not only international ballet but also contemporary dance, jazz, hip-hop, and tap. Her prominence has brought her students who are eager to follow in her footsteps. For the past seven years, she has been training dancers in ballet, modern, and contemporary dance in New York City to help them train for prestigious schools such as the LaGuardia School of the Arts and The Juilliard School. Her hope is to inspire a deep passion for the art in young dancers and to give them the tools they need to be successful as a professional dancer one day.

The pause in the industry has given Victoria time to reflect on her career and her future. More than ever, she is eager to go back on stage with her fellow performers and give audiences moving and inspiring performances. Many of her fellow artists are anxious about the future of performing arts, but as a teacher, she knows that as long as people continue to enjoy dance, the industry will survive.

Check out some of Victoria’s amazing performances on her Instagram.