Jill Belland is a Canadian entrepreneur, dancer, fitness coach, and media personality from Calgary. She is a co-owner of Bare Bell, where she provides exercise training. She was previously a TV host and producer at Citytv Calgary, where she was the “On Location Host” of Breakfast Television.
Early life
Born in Edmonton, Belland moved to Calgary at a young age. She studied classical piano and trained to be a singer. Belland studied communications, culture, and media at the University of Calgary.
Belland joined the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders Outriders cheerleading squad, which she was part of for four years. She sang the National Anthem for the Stampeders at home games. She has also worked as a stage actress, performing in local productions such as Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, The Full Monty, and Man Out of Joint.
TV
Belland was hired by A-Channel in Calgary (CKAL-DT was previously known as A-Channel, before becoming Citytv Calgary). She started as the “Coffee Girl”, doing various gopher tasks for The Big Breakfast TV show. She moved on to assist with production of the Big Breakfast show and the station’s news department.
Belland was hired in 2004 as an entertainment reporter for the show MTV Select. At the time, A-Channel and MTV Canada were both owned by Craig Media. She was promoted to become host and producer of Wired on A-Channel in 2003. She also served as a host of Your City, Citytv’s weekday evening show.
Belland became the producer and host of The City Show, a weekend show, that won the Rosie award for “Best News Information Series” by the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association (AMPIA) in 2006. The City Show and Your City were cancelled in January 2010. Belland has also won the AMPIA “Best Host” award for 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Belland was voted “Sexiest Women” in Calgary by Fast Forward Weekly readers in 2009. Belland was included in Avenue Magazine’s 2011 “Top 40 Under 40” list of Calgarian’s.
Fitness business
After covering Barre Body Studio for a segment on City in January 2013, she became a dance and fitness instructor there. In February 2016 Belland and friend Kristi Stuart opened up their own barre studio together, called Barre Belle. Barre is a form of exercise that gets its name from it’s use of the ballet barre. Belland and Stuart developed their own version of Barre, which includes greater impact in their classes, compared to other Barre systems. They opened locations in Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto. During COVID lockdowns they moved to a focus on online instructon.
As co-owner of Barre Belle, she helped organize hundreds of other small business owners in June 2019 to call for a reduction of municipal taxes by Calgary’s City Council, which did lower taxes by 10%. In 2020, she was named by Alberta Central, the central banking facility, service bureau and trade association for Alberta’s credit unions, to act as one of the judges to make awards under the Big Future Innovation Grant program for small businesses in Alberta.
Photo notes
All the photos above were taken by me. The lead photo was taken on Steven Avenue Mall in Calgary during a fashion show which Belland hosted on September 8, 2009. Two of the photos were taken at the Calgary International Film Festival held on September 23, 2010; where she was a VIP guest. The next picture was taken at a Mr. and Ms. Anatomy contest held in Calgary on July 29, 2010. Belland served as the MC. It was put on as a promotion by the Body Worlds exhibit, which was on tour in Calgary at the time.
© 2021 Robert Thivierge