Mrs. Eveline Erard proprietor of the Academy, holds the position of Executive Director. Mrs. Erard and her family have been in the area for over forty years. As the mother of two daughters, Mrs. Erard hopes that other parents will seize the opportunity to enlarge their children’s appreciation for the Arts by providing them with the finest dance training.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

TRAINING

PERFORMING EXPERIENCE

2003-2005

The following are with Manassas Dance Company: Faust, Gypsy Love, Peter and the Wolf, Swan Lake, Strauss Spectacular, Giselle, Gaite Parisiene, and The Nutcracker

Giselle, Albrecht; Atlantic Southeast Chian Tour: Aliev's One Thousand and One Nights, Sinbad; Ballet Internationale Alonso's Carmen, Zuniga; Ballet Internationale Flemming Flindt's Phaedra, Playing Field, Petipa's Don Quixote; Murdma's Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt; Bournonville's Napoli, Pas de Six; Giselle, Hilarion; Aliev's The Nutcracker, Russian, Waltz of the Flowers; Ballet Internationale Oleg Vinogradov's Romeo and Juliet, Universal Ballet Webre's Peter Pan, First Twin; Washington Ballet; Stewart's Oriental, Hata

Wilson's The Marbleslide, Stewart's Cinderella, Jester; Ballet Theatre of Maryland's Carnival in Venice, Raymonda; Alieve's The Nutcracker, Russian, Waltz of the Flowers; Ballet Internationale Webre's Carmina Burana, O Fortuna, Vulnera; Washington Ballet, Stewart After Petrov's Soirees Musicales, Canzonetta; Stewart's Gershwin Suite, "Liza", "Do It Again", Stewart's Carmina Burana, Monk, Celestial Figure; Stewart's The Nutcracker, Nutcracker, Chinese; Ballet Theatre of Maryland Petipa / Ivanov's The Swan Lake, Jester

Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Benvolio; Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, Prince; Adam's Giselle, Peasant Pas De Deux; Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty, Blue Bird; Balatsenko's The Chair, Donetsk-Russian Theatre of Ballet

Vasulik's Sea Full of Tears, Shot's How Man Came into the World, Verdi's Requiem, Ravel's Bolero, Orff's Carmina Burana, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Adam's Giselle, Minkus' Don Quixote, Mahler's Adagietto, Patterson's Pink Lady Diamonds, National Ballet Usti nad Labem

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Mrs. Drennan started her ballet lessons as a child living in Africa while her father was a foreign correspondent in the early 1970's. In 1975, when her family moved back home to the United States, she began taking ballet lessons at the Prochotsky School of Ballet in Bethesda, Maryland with Irena Prochotsky. During her time there, she danced in leading roles from Les Sylphides, Coppelia, Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker and La Bayadere. She also spent her summers on full scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet in New York and the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia.

By her junior year in high school, she encountered an issue with her back that forced her to stop dancing for a couple of years. She decided to change her career path from a ballerina to the business world and family.

After 20 years, in 2002, she returned to the world of ballet. She started taking classes and teaching at the Ashburn Academy of Ballet in Ashburn, VA and then in the fall of 2004, moved with her family to Fredericksburg. She now lives in Stafford County with her husband and daughter, who attends Mountain View High School.

DeLane Califf began her dance career as a young child in Jacksonville, Florida, studying classical ballet with Mr. Frank Polar at the Jacksonville Ballet. She studied with him until a family move took her to Atlanta, where she studied with the Atlanta Ballet and also with a private instructor for several years. Another move took her to Nashville, where she studied under the tutelage of Mrs. Albertine Maxwell; a well-known doyenne of the ballet world in the South and the founder of the Nashville Ballet.

Mrs. Maxwell had a dance compound in Maine where she would invite certain dancers to come for summer intensives, one of the first of its kind. Mrs. Califf was fortunate to be one of those issued an invitation. She later added private dance classes in Tap, Jazz and Musical Theatre with Mr. Nick Lambos, also of Nashville.

Mrs. Califf has continued with her instruction as an adult taking classes in modern dance, jazz (specifically the Fosse technique), and ballet, and also has attended dance teacher workshops in New York, where she has taken classes under Bob Rizzo, Daniel Lewis, Rhonda Fleming and various instructors from the Broadway Dance Center.

She has been married to Lee for 25 years, and has four children, two of whom are dancers.


View my class schedule.

Return to main About us page.
 

Melissa Allen Gregory

I believe in children. Their talents and accomplishments can rival those of professional dancers.

I was fortunate to begin my training with Jacqueline Williams Thurston of the New York City Ballet. I continued my studies with Ms. Thurston, Frederick Franklin and Oleg Tupine at the National Ballet of Washington, DC. I went on to study in New York with Joffery Ballet, Igor Swetchoff, and George Chaffee. In New York, I also studied modern dance at Martha Graham's studio and studied injury prevention and rehabilitation with Raoul Gelabert. I was fortunate to study Classical Russian Technique with Vladimir Dokoudovsky and Nina Stroganova at Ballet Arts and New York Conservatory of Dance.

My lengthy tutelage with Mr. Doukodovsky included Marinsky technique for children. I have been a guest artist at the University of Maryland and University of Mary Washington assisting Eric Hampton in teaching as well as directing. I have taught and performed in Texas, Maryland, California, Washington DC, Germany and Africa. In 1995, I moved to Africa and taught children from Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Asia and Africa. I have studied Royal Academy of Dance with such Royal Ballet greats as Arnott Maynard, Stanley Hall and Charles Dickson and Wendy Robinson. However, I specialize in Classical Russian Technique as taught to me by the stars of Ballet Russes de Mont de Carlo.

It has been a privilege and honor to study with such a prestigious roll call of Ballet greats. I have also learned much from the precious students I have taught in the past 40 years. My students have gone on to dance professionally with Jofferey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Washington Ballet. If they do not succeed, I do not succeed. Jacqueline Williams Thurston, Frederick Frankline, Kira Ivanovsky, Vladimir Dokoudovsky, Oleg Tupine and Tania Rousseau believed in me, and I believe in my students.


View my class schedule.

Return to main About us page.