The Banff Centre is a post-secondary educational institution dedicated to the
arts,
leadership development, and
mountain culture, located in
Banff, in the
Bow Valley of
Banff National Park,
Alberta,
Canada.
The Banff Centre offers arts programming in music, dance, opera, Aboriginal art, media and visual art, writing and publishing.
There is a complete recreation centre, the Sally Borden Building, including weight training, racquetball, tennis, swimming, wall climbing, and outdoor excursions.
It was founded in 1933 by the University of Alberta, and was then a single course in theatre. Success led to the addition of other art programs, and two years later, the centre was renamed The Banff School of Fine Arts. The 1950s introduced conferences and management programs. In 1970, it was again renamed The Banff Centre for Continuing Education, known simply as The Banff Centre. In 1978, it was granted institutional autonomy. In the 1980s and 1990s, The Banff Centre raised funds for new facilities and programming, despite provincial government cuts to the public sector.
The new features were introduced in 1996, and included a large, beautiful conference facility, which generates a fair deal of revenue for the Centre, a Music & Sound complex, and the Mountain Culture program.
In 1999, the federal government recognized The Banff Centre as a National Training Institute, and provided three million dollars funding for artistic training programs.
The current president and CEO of The Banff Centre is Mary E. Hofstetter, and two-thirds of the Centre's employees are unionized.
See: Alberta's Universities