Ballet

At the age of eighteen, Charles Askegard joined the American Ballet Theatre under the direction of Mikhail Baryshnikov. He performed with ABT for ten years performing many lead roles in both full-length and repertory ballets including Swan Lake, Giselle, La Bayadere, and Romeo and Juliet, and working with legendary choreographers Agnes de Mille, Twyla Tharp, Natalia Makarova, Lar Lubovitch, and Glen Tetley. 

Judy Rice is a graduate of the National Ballet School of Canada and has performed extensively across the US and Canada including the Joffrey Ballet, The National Tap Dance Company of Canada, and American Ballet Comedy. She has 20 years experience teaching for regional companies and festivals as well as Company Dance, DMA, DEA, CNADM, 3D Dance Network, The Joffrey Ballet School, The Joffrey Ballet, Broadway Dance Center and the Dance Teacher Magazine Summer Conference.

Dwight Rhoden (Founding Artistic Director/Resident Choreographer of Complexions Contemporary Ballet) has established a remarkably wide-ranging career, earning distinction from The New York Times as “one of the most sought out choreographers of the day.”

Benoit-Swan Pouffer is a critically-acclaimed choreographer representing an innovative, less formalized approach to dance. Born and raised in Paris, he studied as a dancer at the prestigious Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse. Early in his career he took first place in the Benetton European Dance Competition, a distinguishment that preceded seven years of dancing with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, where he was a principal dancer.

John Selya, Native New Yorker, trained at the School of American Ballet from 1980-1988. In his final year there, he received the Mae L. Wien award for outstanding promise. He was then invited by Mikhail Baryshnikov to join American Ballet Theatre, where he performed and created works by Balanchine, Robbins, Tharp, and Mark Morris, Tetley, Kudelka, and Kylian, as well as the classical repertoire.