NHB 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.
