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Born in Minneapolis, Minn., Simone Messmer began studying dance at the age of nine at Ballet Arts Minnesota. At 14, she continued her training at The HARID Conservatory in Boca Raton, Fla., and was awarded the Jeannot B. Cerrone Award for Excellence in Dance. At 16, she resumed her training at Ballet Arts Minnesota under the direction of Bonnie Mathis. Messmer participated in American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive Program in 2001 and joined ABT Studio Company in that same year. Messmer danced with ABT for over a decade, rising to the rank of soloist in 2010. While in the company, Messmer originated major roles in new works by Alexei Ratmansky such as Firebird, Symphony #9, On the Dnieper, as well as by Christopher Wheeldon and Benjamin Millepied. Her extraordinary range extends from Twyla Tharp’s Baker’s Dozen to Giselle’s Myrtha.

Her other repertoire with ABT included The Bright Stream, Le Corsaire, Raymonda, Ballo della Regina, Birthday Offering, Company B, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, In The Upper Room, Overgrown Path, Petite Mort, Sinfonietta, and Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison.Messmer joined San Francisco Ballet in 2013 performing principal roles in Balanchine’s Agon and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, and Ratmansky’s From Foreign Lands and Chamber Symphony. Other major roles included “The Man I Love” in Balanchine’s Who Cares?, The Firebird in Passokov’s The Firebird, and appearances in works by Mark Morris and Liam Scarlett. Messmer joined Miami City Ballet as a Principal Dancer in 2015.

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ps-shanna3591NHB is thrilled to announce that Stephen Hanna will perform as the Cavalier in our 2016 Nutcracker. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he trained under Roberto Munoz. He entered the School of American Ballet (SAB) where he then trained with his teachers Stanley Williams, Andre Kramervsky, and Richard Rapp. At SAB Mr. Hanna was awarded the Mae L. Wein Award for outstanding promise. Mr. Hanna became an apprentice with New York City Ballet in 1997, and later that year he joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet. Mr. Hanna was promoted to the rank of soloist in February 2004, and in January 2005, he was promoted to principal dancer. He has performed Principal roles in Ballets by Peter Martins, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Richard Tanner, and Albert Evans.

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Artistic Director, Lisa Sanborn, is delighted to announce that the Anna Fitch Ardenghi Trust awarded a grant in the amount of $2,500 to New Haven Ballet. This grant was made to support the DanceAIR program. NHB is proud to provide professional classical ballet training to 2nd grade students in underserved New Haven Public Schools and award scholarships to students who participate in the program. For more information about DanceAIR please contact Children’s Division Director, Christopher DeNofrio, at DeNofrio@newhavenballet.org.

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person_127NHB is pleased to announce that Jenna Lavin (Crabtree) will offer master classes to NHB Level 5-8 students on September 26, 2016. Ms. Lavin is originally from Queens, New York. She began her ballet training with Mme. Gabriela Darvash and Jody Fugate. She later graduated from the School of American Ballet where she studied with such teachers as Alexandria Danilova, Antonia Tumkovsky and Stanley Williams. Ms. Lavin began her professional career at 17 when she was invited to join the Chicago City Ballet, under the direction of Maria Tallchief. Ms. Lavin also danced with the Atlanta Ballet directed by Robert Barnett, for seven years. Her principal and soloist roles with the Atlanta Ballet include: Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, The Four Temperaments, Serenade, Tarantella Pas de Deux, Minkus Pas a Trois as well as Le Corsaire Pas de Deux, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. Ms. Lavin was a principal dancer with the Nashville Ballet where she danced Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, the title role in Giselle, and principal roles in the company’s contemporary repertoire. Other professional affiliations include the Los Angelos Ballet, under the direction of John Clifford. Ms. Lavin spent eight summers as a member of the Chautauqua Ballet Company, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux where she performed principal roles in ballets by Balanchine, Bonnefoux and Clifford. she is a former soloist with Edward Villella’s Miami City Ballet where she danced principal roles in many ballets including Divertimento #15, Jewels, Pas de Dix, Raymonda Variations, Valse Fantasies, Western Symphony, Glinka Pas a Trois, The Nutcracker and Who Cares? Ms. Lavin has worked with numerous choreographers, creating principal roles in ballets by Alonzo King, Lisa de Ribere and Stanton Welch to name a few. In the summer of 2003, Ms. Lavin performed in Casablanca, a collaboration between Warner Bros. and John Clifford’s Los Angelos Dance Theater.

Ms. Lavin has been teaching ballet to young dancers throughout her career beginning in Chicago when she was 17. She has taught master classes in Atlanta, Michigan, and for the Nashville Ballet School. Ms. Lavin has been on faculty at Ballet Academy East since 2003 where she teaches and choreographs for the Pre-Professional Program. She is married to Cornel Crabtree. They are the proud parents of Sky, 7, Grayson, 3, and Cooper, born April, 2012.

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NHB Shoreline Open House

New Haven Ballet will hold an Open House on Saturday, September 10, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Meet Artistic Director, Lisa Sanborn, Children’s Division Director, Christopher DeNofrio, and the professional NHB faculty.

The Branford studio is NHB’s home on the Shoreline. Located at 9 Business Park Drive, right off exit 56 of I-95, the Branford location features two large dance studios with sprung wood floors, marley surfaces for pointe work, natural light, and ample parking. Artistic Director Lisa Sanborn notes enthusiastically that the state-of-the-art studio enables NHB to better serve both New Haven and Shoreline students. She invites all interested members of the public to stop by to tour the spacious studios and learn more about NHB’s programs. Registration for fall classes is now open. For more information, please call the NHB office at 203-782-9038.

NHB is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community based classical ballet school providing ballet instruction to students aged 3 years – adult. In 2015, NHB’s Company was voted “Best Dance Company” and “Best Arts Organization” by New Haven’s CTNow Readers Poll. NHB presents its annual production of The Nutcracker at the Shubert Theater, which exclusively features NHB students. NHB’s Company performs throughout the region at local festivals and schools. NHB offers both needs based and merit scholarships and its outreach programs include, “DanceAIR,” affording classical ballet training and scholarships to underserved students, and “Shared Ability,” which provides dance training and performance opportunities to differently abled students. NHB is thrilled to offer its professional classical ballet programming to Branford and acknowledges the generosity of its devoted patrons and corporate as well as foundational support, including Carolyn Foundation, City of New Haven Arts, Culture & Tourism, Department of Economic and Community Development, Ethel & Abe Lapides Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, NewAlliance Foundation, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and Withers Bergman LLP. Photo: Thomas Giroir Photography © 2016.

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Artistic Director, Lisa Sanborn, is pleased to announce Christopher DeNofrio, a distinguished teacher and dancer, has been appointed Children’s Division Director of New Haven Ballet.

Mr. DeNofrio holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the Boston Conservatory of Music. A native New Englander, Mr. DeNofrio began his training on Cape Cod with Klara Koenig and studied with Edward Villella before continuing his training in Boston. In 1993, Mr. DeNofrio was given an apprenticeship with George Verdak’s Indianapolis Ballet Theatre where he had the opportunity to work with former Kirov stars, Irina Kolpakova and Vladien Seminov. He also performed the principal role in David Hochoy’s the “Farewell” at IBT’s 20th Anniversary Gala.

Mr. DeNofrio returned to the Northeast and danced with the Albany Berkshire Ballet. His roles included Benvolio in Francis Patrelle’s “Romeo and Juliet” and the Cavalier in Madelline Cantarello Culpo’s “The Nutcracker”. He joined Jose Mateo’s Ballet Theatre in 1994 and danced original works by Jose Mateo while touring New England. He danced featured roles in Jose Mateo’s “Isle of the Dead” and “Schubert Adagio” at the Lincoln Center “Out of Doors” festival.

While in Boston, Mr. DeNofrio performed the principal role in George Balanchine’s “Valse Fantasie” and the “Balcony Pas de Deux” from Romeo and Juliet under the direction of James Reardon with Boston Dance Company. In 1997, Mr. DeNofrio danced in Boston Ballet’s “Le Corsaire”, “Swan Lake” and Michael Corder’s “Cinderella”. In 1998, he joined the Louisville Ballet as a soloist. He performed original works by Alun Jones, Dale Brannon, Paul Taylor and David Parsons.

Mr. DeNofrio was appointed Associate Director of Louisville Ballet School in 1999 and became a member of SERBA, the Southeast Regional Ballet Association. In 2002, Mr. DeNofrio moved to Vancouver, Canada where he joined the British Columbia chapter of the Canadian Alliance of Dance Artists, The Vancouver International Dance Festival and Kokoro Dance. He is certified in Primary through Level 3 of the ABT National Training Curriculum. Mr. DeNofrio joined New Haven Ballet in 2014 and is excited to begin working with families and students in his new position teaching in both New Haven and Branford, where he will be focusing much of his attention.

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Lisa Sanborn began her dance training in New Jersey at the Princeton Ballet School. After moving to Illinois, Ms. Sanborn trained at the Ruth Page Foundation in Chicago with Larry Long, Dolores Lipinski, and Warren Conover. Ms. Sanborn danced as a member of the Clinton Contemporary Ballet and Quad Cities Civic Ballet companies in Iowa, performed for several years in the Chicago Tribune Charities production of The Nutcracker at the Arie Crown Theater, and appeared with the Royal Danish Ballet at the Auditorium Theater in Napoli. Prior to her appointment as Artistic Director at New Haven Ballet in April 2014, Ms. Sanborn was a distinguished teacher at the Ballet, and during her tenure taught ballet technique, variations, and pointe to both children and adults. She also choreographed and staged several works for NHB. Her students have pursued professional careers in dance and been accepted into elite programs, including: School of American Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Miami City Ballet, the Rock School (Pennsylvania Ballet), Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Joffrey Ballet, Boston Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, and many others.
In addition to ballet, Ms. Sanborn is classically trained and certified in Pilates mat and all apparatus. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Skidmore College and a Juris Doctorate from Albany Law School of Union University. In 2015, Yale University appointed Ms. Sanborn an Associate Fellow of Pierson College. Ms. Sanborn also serves as a member of the Arts Industry Coalition and previously served on the Board of Directors for the Connecticut Dance Alliance.

 

Alisa Bowens is the Director of Alisa’s House of Salsa in New Haven, Connecticut. Ms. Bowens’s dancing journey began at the age of three at Gloria Jean’s Studio of Dance. She is a classically trained ballet, tap, and jazz dancer, who obtained her Dance Masters Of America (DMA), Professional Teaching Certificate. In 1998, she decided to take a Latin “Salsa” dance class and instantly was addicted to the music, movements, and spirit of Salsa dancing. In September of 2002, Ms. Bowens opened Alisa’s House of Salsa I, Studio Of Latin Dance, in New Haven, Connecticut. In the Winter of 2003, Alisa’s House Of Salsa II opened in Waterbury, Connecticut and in the summer of 2004, Alisa’s House Of Salsa III opened their doors in Hartford, Connecticut. Ms. Bowens has opened for Grammy-Award Winner Rueben Blades and performed as the lead Back-Up Dancer for M&M Recording Artist Hector-Bonet. She acted as lead Choreographer/Dancer/Performer with the Concert Tour of Morning, Noon, and Night, featuring A.W. Nardi. In addition, Ms. Bowens has opened for Jose Alberto “El Canario”, Huey Dunbar, Brenda K. Starr, Tito Nieves, Tiempo Libre, Eddie Palmieri, India (Salsa Palooza Tour), Spanish Harlem Orquestra, & Dee Dee Bridgewater, as well as performed as a dancer with Mi Cata (Afro-Latin Salsa band), Orquestra Espada and Marion Meadows, Jazz Saxophone player.

 

Emily Coates received the School of American Ballet Mae L. Wein Award for Outstanding Promise in 1992 and joined New York City Ballet that same year. After six years with NYCB, she transitioned into contemporary dance. At the invitation of Mikhail Baryshnikov, she joined White Oak Dance Project (1998 – 2002), and subsequently performed with Twyla Tharp Dance (2001 – 2003), and Yvonne Rainer (2005 – present). Performing career highlights include three duets with Baryshnikov: Mark Morris’ The Argument, in Karole Armitage’s The Last Lap, and Erick Hawkins’ Early Floating, principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp, Lucinda Childs’ canonical solo Carnation, Yvonne Rainer’s 21st century creations, and Christopher Janney’s solo HeartBeat, originally performed by Sara Rudner and later Baryshnikov. In her own creations, she tries to integrate whenever possible movement research, choreography, and writing. Her research interests include the aesthetics and evolution of postmodern dance and intercultural collaboration, focusing on two distinct areas: contemporary American and African dance collaborations, and interdisciplinary arts and science research.
She has been a resident artist at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, where she was a Martha Duffy Memorial Fellow, Duo Multicultural Arts Center, and Jacob’s Pillow through its Creative Development Residency. Her recent projects include a multi-sited research project on intercultural collaboration undertaken with Lacina Coulibaly, an artist based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Their joint-creations include the development of a duet titled Ici Ou Ailleurs, performed in full or excerpted at Cornell, Harvard, Brown, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and in the Movement Research Fall Festival. Their second piece for a group of eight dancers, commissioned and performed by Ballet Memphis and titled Où Que Nous Soyons, premiered in Memphis , TN in February 2011. They are currently working on a third choreographic creation and a book project, developed in collaboration with scholar Brent Hayes Edwards. In the area of integrated arts and science research, she has collaborated with particle physicist Sarah Demers since 2011, first on a co-taught course at Yale titled The Physics of Dance, and now through co-authoring an interdisciplinary book on physics and dance based on the course, forthcoming from Yale University Press. Their project “Discovering the Higgs” was selected for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s Reintegrate initiative in 2012-2013. Their related science-art video “Three Views of the Higgs and Dance” premiered online in December 2013. Her essays have appeared in Theater, PAJ, Huffington Post, and Transformations. With Joseph Roach, she is co-editor of Theater’s 2010 issue on postglobal dance. Between 2006 and 2012, she served as the artistic director of Professor Roach’s World Performance Project at Yale. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in English from Yale ’06 and holds an MA in American Studies from Yale ’11. Currently, she is an assistant professor (adjunct) in Theater Studies and director of dance studies at Yale University, where she has directed the dance curriculum since its inception in 2006.

 

Jeremy Cox trained with New Haven Ballet for over 10 years and also at the School of American Ballet in New York City. Professionally, he danced with Miami City Ballet as a principal dancer for 10 years performing works by such notable choreographers as George Balanchine, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp. In 2010, Mr. Cox debuted on Broadway as “Marty” in Twyla Tharp’s Come Fly Away. Mr. Cox joined NHB’s faculty in 2015.

 

Jennifer Rockwell Edwards is an alumna of the Walnut Hill School for the Fine Arts in Natick, MA, where she studied dance performance, dance pedagogy and choreography. Ms. Rockwell danced with Rosella Hightower’s Jeune Ballet International in France, and then returned to the United States to perform as a principal guest artist with the Amherst Ballet and Pioneer Valley Ballet. In addition, Ms. Rockwell danced with the Twin Cities Metropolitan Ballet as well as Minnesota Dance Theater and, was eventually invited to join
the Saint Paul City Ballet Company as a principal artist in 2007. She graduated suma cum laude from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2004, where she earned a BFA in Dance and a BA in Psychology.

 

Lauded as “refreshingly original” by Alastair Macaulay of The New York Times, choreographer Miro Magloire is the founder and artistic director of New Chamber Ballet. Magloire has created over 60 ballets in his signature style for his company, all distinguished by sweeping elegance, a striking theatricality, and bold musical choices. “It’s heartening to see work so focused on the meeting of dance and music,” Macaulay wrote in his Times review, “always you’re aware of an intelligence at work that resists romantic cliché.”
Known for his visionary collaborations with musicians – singers, violinists, pianists and large ensembles – Magloire has a special affinity for cutting-edge contemporary music, which has led him to work with many of today’s leading composers. Magloire, the subject of a 2008 full-page profile in the Sunday NY Times, recently received an O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation Grant. His works have been performed at Joyce SoHo, the Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Stage, Roulette, Ailey/Citigroup Theater, the Center for Performance Research and the Museum of Art and Design, among other venues. He has collaborated with the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Ensemble Sospeso and, in addition, has created ballets for the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and the State Academy of Dance in Cologne, Germany.
Born in Munich, Germany, Magloire started his career as a composer. At age 17 he won the “Forum of Young Composers Award” in North Rhine-Westphalia, and went on to study with Mauricio Kagel at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany. After relocating to New York to study Modern Dance at the Ailey and Martha Graham Schools, where his teachers included Yung-Yung Tsuai and Kazuko Hirabayashi, and ballet with Wilhelm Burmann and Peff Modelski among others, he turned his attention to choreography and in 2004 founded New Chamber Ballet.

 

Marc Spielberger performed as a dancer with the State Opera in Berlin. He joined Miami City Ballet in 1999 and was promoted to Soloist in 2006. He has danced works by notable choreographers such as Balanchine, Robbins, Forsythe, Bejart, Petit, among others. Mr. Spielberger received the “Prix Nouveaux”award for choreography at the American Ballet competition.

 

Nazorine Ulysse was born in Port au Prince, Haiti, started studying dance at East Rock Middle School in New Haven and is a graduate of ECA. Ms. Ulysse studied with the Ririe Woodberry Dance Company in Utah and at the Martha Graham School in New York City. While in New York, she studied Hatha Yoga at the Open Center and worked with Douglas Dunn on his dance project to Europe. She received her B.F.A in Dance from the California Institute of the Arts and an M.F.A in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College. After spending several years in New York City dancing with Oliver Tarpage, choreographing, and teaching, she returned to New Haven where she founded her own company, Ulysse and Dancers. She’s worked with Yale faculty Lasso Coulibaly from Burkina Faso. Ms. Ulysse performed and worked with professor Jerry Gardner exploring Japanese Butoh and martial arts. She worked On Terra Trackus: The Earth Moves- as the head choreographer. At Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) she teaches modern dance technique, Choreography III, Contact Improvisation, Sites Specific, Yoga, faculty Repertory, directed the E.C.A Dance Repertory Company and advises Senior Projects in the spring. She’s a faculty member of the Center for Creative Youth (CCY) at Wesleyan University.

 

Hyung Ji (Heidi) Yu began her early ballet training in the Vagonova Method in Korea. As a dancer of the Korean Ballet Theatre, Ms. Yu performed roles in several classical ballets. She received her Masters of Fine Arts degree in dance from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where she focused on pedagogy and choreography. Ms. Yu has performed with the Roxey Contemporary Ballet Company and Albano Ballet Company, taught ballet and shown her choreography at festivals throughout New York. She holds a teaching certificate in the Vagonova Method. Ms. Yu is currently the Artistic Director of AS Arts NY and teaches ballet at the Broadway Dance Center in New York.

For more information about NHB Faculty: https://newhavenballet.org/faculty/

OUR MISSION

To provide the greater New Haven Community with exceptional classical ballet training, performances, and outreach programs, that nurture appreciation of ballet and foster the joy of dance.

On October 31, 2020, NHB’s Board of Directors adopted the following Diversity and Inclusion Statement:

New Haven Ballet celebrates those who aspire to excellence in classical ballet. A culture of creativity is the core of our work and diversity promotes innovation. The arts can provide powerful life-changing experiences that prepare students and impact audiences to lead more successful, meaningful and culturally rich lives. The arts can also prove to be an important platform for social change. At New Haven Ballet we are passionate about creating an inclusive dance environment and performances that promote and value diversity and inclusion. We will continue to strive to increase diversity in age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, and perspective, which will improve and strengthen our work.

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