BBT dancers attend summer intensives around the world!
This summer, many of Boca Ballet Theatre’s dancers traveled near and far to attend some of the most prestigious summer dance programs and train with incredible faculty from the ballet world! Here are just a few of the dancers who reached out to share their adventures with us!
Sasha Benton honed her Vaganova technique with a teacher who graduated from the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg. This classical ballet training curriculum was created by famed Russian dancer Agrippina Vaganova, who derived it from the teachings of Marius Petipa, the ballet master who created famous ballets like Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Raymonda, amongst many others.
Zlata Popovych also immersed herself in this ballet method at the Vaganova International Program in Las Vegas, Nevada. This special program included classes with founders Natalia Bashkatova, who is a former principal dancer with Bolshoi Ballet, and Alexei Moskalenko, who danced with Bolshoi Ballet Grigorovich and Alexander Prokofiev’s Moscow Ballet.
Traveling all the way to Europe was Valeria Derkach, who attended summer intensives at the Dutch National Ballet Academy in Amsterdam and The Royal Ballet School in London. Valeria had to opportunity to take daily classes from stars of the Dutch National Ballet, who coached students in pas de deux, solos, and repertoire specific to the company. In London, she was able to train in the English style of classical ballet, which was created by the school’s founder Dame Ninette de Valois, who drew inspiration from her teachers Espinosa, Cecchetti, Legat, and Preobrajenska.
Sophia Li attended American Ballet Theatre’s summer intensive, a multi-week training program that serves as a primary recruitment pipeline for the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and the ABT Studio Company. Here she learned ABT’s National Training Curriculum while studying under ABT alumni, current ABT dancers, and renowned guest teachers.
Venturing up to Boston, Massachusetts, was Liana Iossi, who participated in Boston Ballet’s Summer Dance Program. While grounded in ballet technique, this intensive also encourages students to expand their understanding of the dance world by taking classes in character, jazz/musical theater, modern, and salsa. Faculty members from Boston Ballet School, professional dancers from the Company, and guest faculty from companies across the country taught this program’s core classes.
Ariella Schiller traveled to Indiana and Pennsylvania to attend Indiana University and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s summer intensive programs, which offered classes in technique, pointe, variations, conditioning, contemporary ballet, ballet history, and more! Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater is one of the country’s top college dance programs and has frequently attended BBT’s College Dance Fair!
Two of our dancers, Elodie Oberstein and Mischa Parisien, attended The Directors’ Summer program here at BBT, training under renowned artistic directors like Gil Boggs, Cervilio Amador, Peter Boal, Roy Kaiser, Michael Novak, and Nan Giordano as well as incredible guest faculty like Nicholas Palmquist, Jeffrey Lloyd Smith, and Jennifer Kronenberg. Both performed in our production of La Baydère alongside ABT’s Skylar Brandt and Philadelphia Ballet’s Sterling Baca and Scarlett Güémez. We wish Mischa a good luck merde as she leaves us to study at the National Ballet School of Canada!
