Our History

The FMBallet (aka Fargo-Moorhead Ballet) began in August of 2003 under the direction of Kathryn Gasper and Eddie Gasper. The company was formally known as Carousel Dance Theatre, which was a dance studio and company combined. After a move into a new facility, Gasper's School of Dance was formed as a for-profit dance school, and FMBallet was developed as a non-profit dance company.

The Gasper family has dance and theatre roots in this community that date back to 1978. They founded many successful companies in the region, which toured the United States and around the world.

In 2008, Kathy and Eddie's son was appointed Artistic Director of the company. At this time Eddie retired from dance and spent most his time at the lakes, while still giving ideas and input into the company. Kathy Gasper remained with the company as the Ballet Mistress choreography productions alongside, Matthew.

The vision of the company has always been to give dancers in the Fargo-Moorhead and surrounding communities the opportunity to perform dance at the highest level. In addition to performing, Matt believes in giving opportunities in choreography to emerging choreographers, company members, and staff.

Our productions are created to tell a story and entertain audiences. Throughout our history, we have brought original choreography and dance works that are usually seen in larger cities such as Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York City , right here to the Fargo-Moorhead area. We are not another dance studio's recital. Rather we take pride in superior productions from start to finish.

Beyond our company, mentorship of the next generation of dancer's has been very important to our company. We want to inspire dancer's who participate, as well as those in the audience. With open auditions to our major productions, this gives area dancer's the opportunity to dance along side our professional company dancers. This program has proven to influence young dancer's to continue to train and eventually audition and become a FMBallet company member and continue the cycle of encouraging the next generation.

We look forward to many more decades to continue to write our story and continue to provide high quality dance productions and concerts to the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo community, surrounding communities and the upper midwest.