Guest Faculty

  • Maria Kowroski was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she began her ballet training at age seven with the School of Grand Rapids Ballet. She entered the School of American Ballet in the fall of 1992. She became an apprentice with the New York City Ballet in the summer of 1994 and was invited to join the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in January of 1995. Promoted in the spring of 1997 to the rank of Soloist and in the spring of 1999 to Principal Dancer. Her repertoire includes Agon, Apollo, Chaconne, Concerto Barocco, Firebird, The Nutcracker, Jewels, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mozartiana, Swan Lake, Serenade, Symphony in C, The Cage, The Concert, and Dances at a Gathering.

    As well as gracing the New York stage for more than 25 years, Maria also traveled globally, making principal guest appearances with world-class ballet companies along the way. In addition, she has worked with many of the dance world's leading choreographers, received the prestigious Princess Grace Award, and has been honored by the Jerome Robbins Foundation for her excellence in performing his works. Maria now serves as Artistic Director of New Jersey Ballet and hopes to bring her expertise to the table in order to help shape the arts scene across the Garden State.

  • Ms. Fairchild is a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. She was born in Salt  Lake City, Utah, and began her dance training at the age of four, at Dance Concepts in  Sandy, Utah, and at the Ballet West Conservatory in Salt Lake City. She moved to New  York City to train at the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York  City Ballet, in 2000, and was hired as an apprentice with NYCB the following year. Ms.  Fairchild was promoted to the rank of soloist in 2004, and to principal in 2005. Ms.  Fairchild’s expansive repertoire with New York City Ballet includes principal roles in  classical full-length ballets such as Swan Lake, Coppelia, Sleeping Beauty and La  Sylphide, as well as principal roles in ballets choreographed by George Balanchine,  Jerome Robbins, Peter Martins, and Alexei Ratmansky. She was featured as the Sugar  Plum Fairy in the 2011 telecast of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker streamed in  movie theaters worldwide. From 2014-2015 she performed on Broadway as Miss  Turnstiles in the revival of On the Town, for which she was nominated for an Outer  Critics Circle Award and received a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway  debut. In addition to performing full time with the New York City Ballet, Ms. Fairchild is  currently on the faculty at the School of American Ballet and has completed her MBA  with NYU’s Stern School of Business. Her first book came out December 2021  titled, The Ballerina Mindset, published by Penguin, with universal advice for dancers  and non-dancers alike on how to take care of your mental health while striving towards  excellence. She is the proud mother of three beautiful girls.

  • Ms. Wingert began her training at the Central Pennsylvania Youth ballet under Marcia Dale Weary and became a scholarship student at the School of American Ballet in New York. At the age of sixteen, she was selected by George Balanchine to join New York City Ballet. During her fifteen years with the company, Ms. Wingert danced over twenty-five principal, soloist, and featured roles in productions that include Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coppelia, Orpheus, Symphony in C, Jewels, Who Cares?, Stars and Stripes,The Nutcracker, The Four Temperaments, and Mozartiana, Jerome Robbins’ The Concert and Antique Epigraphs, and Peter Martins’ The Sleeping Beauty. A principal and soloist with numerous nationally acclaimed companies, her film and television credits include George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® (Time Warner), PBS “Great Performance” Dinner With Balanchine, “Dance in America” Balanchine - Serenade and Western Symphony, Peter Martins’ Concerto for Two Solo Pianos and “Live from Lincoln Center” A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

    Deborah Wingert is one of a small group of artists selected by The George Balanchine Trust to set his choreography. In this capacity she has traveled throughout the United States, setting and staging the Balanchine repertoire for Dutch National Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, New Jersey Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Baltimore School for the Arts, and Indiana University, to name a few. 

    Ms. Wingert is currently Co-Artistic Director and Head of Faculty at Manhattan Youth Ballet, and on faculty at the Juilliard School. She has been a guest instructor for for many companies and institutions including New York City Ballet, Princeton University, Harvard University, University of Southern California Santa Barbara, Dance Theater of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Jessica Lang Dance, Kyle Abraham: AIM, Sarasota Ballet, Ballet Met, and Jacob’s Pillow Contemporary Program, Interlochen, and the MetOpera Ballet.

  • Noelani Pantastico was born in Oahu, Hawaii, trained at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, and attended summer courses at Pacific Northwest Ballet School (PNB) from 1994 to 1996. She joined Pacific Northwest Ballet as an apprentice in 1997 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 1998, soloist in 2001, and principal in 2004. In 2008, she joined Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo as a soloist and was promoted to first soloist in 2009. In 2015, Ms. Pantastico returned to PNB as a Principal Dancer. In addition to her PNB repertory, Ms. Pantastico danced leading roles at Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Altro Canto, La Belle, Cendrillon, Choré, Faust, Men’s Dance for Women, Opus 40, Roméo et Juliette, Scheherazade, Le Songe, and Vers un Pays Sage; Marie Chouinard’s Body Remix; Alexander Eckman’s Rondo; Nicolo Fonte’s Quiet Bang; William Forsythe’s New Sleep; Emio Greco and Peter Scholten’s Le Corps du Ballet; Natalia Horeçna’s Tales Absurd, Fatalistic Visions Predominate; Johan Inger’s In Exact; Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort; Pontus Lidberg’s Summer’s Winter Shadow; Matjash Mrozewski’s Pavillon d’Armide; and Jeroen Verbruggen’s Kill Bambi. She originated roles in Maillot’s Casse-Noisette Compagnie and Lac. Ms. Pantastico was also featured in the BBC’s 1999 film version of PNB’s production of Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2004, she performed the second movement of Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet as a guest artist for New York City Ballet’s Balanchine Centennial. In 2017, Ms. Pantastico choreographed Picnic for Sculptured Dance, a collaboration between Pacific Northwest Ballet and Seattle Art Museum presented at Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park. In 2019, Ms. Pantastico formed Seattle Dance Collective to provide space to nurture collaboration between artists and choreographers, providing thought-provoking work and high-caliber art to all. She continues to assist SDC as an artistic advisor.

    In February 2022, Ms. Pantastico retired from dancing on the main stage at Pacific Northwest Ballet to focus on teaching. In May 2022, she joined the prestigious faculty at CPYB, was promoted to Director of Pre-Professional Division in August 2022, and then elevated to Artistic Director in May 2023. Currently, Ms. Pantastico is a freelance teacher and coach for aspiring dancers nationwide.

  • Martin Harvey is a British dancer, actor, and educator. His early acting credits include Michael, west-end production of "Peter Pan," Oliver, west-end production of "Oliver," Young Pip (opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins) in Disney's "Great Expectations," Dominic Barber in the Central T.V. pilot, "Zero Option" and the same character in the resulting T.V. series, "Saracen." At 11 years old, Martin joined the Royal Ballet School, and after six years of training, he was offered a place with London's Royal Ballet Company. In a 15-year career, he danced many principal roles with the Royal Ballet, including Crown Prince Rudolf in "Mayerling," Onegin in "Onegin," Colas in "La Fille Mal Gardee," Lescaut in "Manon," and Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet." He created multiple works with many of the world's leading choreographers before going on to appear as Johnny Castle in the hit west-end production of "Dirty Dancing." In 2009, he received the U.K. Critics' Circle Spotlight Award. Martin is now based in the U.S., where he has featured in various film, television, and stage productions, receiving rave reviews for his roles in "A Chorus Line" and "Carousel," and appearing regularly at the Metropolitan Opera House. Aside from his performance work, Martin is also a faculty member of Radix Dance Convention and the Associate Director New Jersey Ballet School.

  • Born in Miami, Florida, Craig Salstein began his training at the Ballet Academy of Miami at the age of eight and continued his training with the Miami City Ballet. In 1995, he was the Grand Champion of Ed McMahon’s Star Search. For two summers he trained with The Joffrey Ballet, the School of American Ballet and American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive as a National Training Scholar. He then went on to dance with Miami City Ballet where he holds the record for performing the Nutcracker-Prince for four years and has the distinction of dancing the role in Scotland when Miami City Ballet became the first American company to present the production overseas.

    Salstein joined American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company (now ABT II) in 2000, was promoted to the main Company in April 2002 and became a Soloist in March 2007. His repertory with the company includes the Bronze Idol and the Head Fakir in La Bayadère, Birbanto in Le Corsaire, Gamache in Don Quixote, Puck in The Dream, the first sailor in Fancy Free, the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, the Joker in Jeu de Cartes, the Beggar Chief in Manon, the lead Pontavedrian Dancer in The Merry Widow, the Nutcracker-Prince in The Nutcracker, a Carnival Dancer in Othello, a Groom in Petrouchka, Bernard and the Saracen Dancer in Raymonda, the Champion Roper in Rodeo, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Catalabutte, the Indian Prince, Gallison and a Fairy Knight in The Sleeping Beauty, the Neapolitan Dance in Swan Lake, Gurn in La Sylphide, Eros and a Goat in Sylvia, the Devil in Three Virgins and a Devil, leading roles in HereAfter and Mozartiana and roles in Baker’s Dozen, Brief Fling, Company B, Désir, Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, Glow – Stop, Gong, In The Upper Room, Sechs Tänze, Seven Sonatas, Sinfonietta and Symphonic Variations. His created roles include Sin in Sin and Tonic and a leading role in Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison and a featured role in Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra.

  • SARAH LANE began her dance training in Memphis, Tennessee at the Memphis Classical Ballet and later at the Draper Center for Dance Education in Rochester, New York. She joined American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in 2002, joining the main company as an apprentice in 2003 and the corps de ballet in April 2004. She rose to soloist in 2007 and principal in 2017, dancing principal roles in Manon, Giselle, Swan Lake, La Bayadère, Coppélia, Le Corsaire, Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty, Theme and Variations, and Whipped Cream, among others. Lane has performed as an international guest artist with Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Teatro dell’ Opera di Roma, Kremlin Ballet, Barcelona Ballet, NBA Ballet Company and Hong Kong Ballet. Lane is also an international guest ballet teacher and an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. She has worked as a guest rehearsal director for American Repertory Ballet and as the Director of the School of Ballet RI.

  • Matthew Dibble was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, U.K. At the age of 11, he entered the Royal Ballet School, where he trained until graduating into the Royal Ballet Company. Matthew rose through the ranks, dancing many roles, including those created for him by choreographers such as Christopher Wheeldon, William Forsythe, Ashley Page, Twyla Tharp, William Tuckett, and Michael Clark. Following his time with the Royal Ballet, Matthew was invited to the United States to begin a close collaboration with famed choreographer Twyla Tharp. He became a member of Twyla Tharp Dance, later joining the cast of her smash hit musical “Movin’ Out” to the music of Billy Joel. He appeared in several parts, including the principal roles of Eddie and James in both the Broadway production in New York and the West End production in London.

    In 2010, Matthew once again appeared on Broadway, creating a principal role in Tharp’s musical “Come Fly Away,” a role he reprised for the Tony Awards and for a national tour. Two decades after first inviting Matthew to join her company, Tharp continues to create many featured works for him, including Yowzie and Beethoven Opus 130, featured during Twyla Tharp Dance’s 50th Anniversary Tour. Along with dancing, Matthew now has the great honor of staging both Benjamin Millepied and Twyla Tharp’s works in the United States and abroad, along with leading master classes and workshops for students and professionals alike.

  • Pavielle Versalles is a Minnesota Native who trained with Minnesota Dance Theatre & School and later joined the company at MDT. She has studied at Miami City Ballet and under the fellowship program at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Pavielle has had the honor of performing works by Loyce Houlton, Lise Houlton, Jean Emile, Dwight Rhoden and Hope Boykin.

    In 2019 Pavielle founded Concept Pavielle, a private ballet coaching and mentoring program for young dancers looking to pursue their passion. Under her training, Pavielle's students have gone on to receive generous scholarships to premiere ballet academies around the world and have received significant recognition at Youth America Grand Prix.

Masterclasses

  • ROBBIE FAIRCHILD made his Tony nominated Broadway debut in 2015 as Jerry Mulligan in  the Tony Award-winning musical An American in Paris, which he reprised in London’s West End  in 2017. He was awarded the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theater World, National Dance  and Astaire Award for this performance and was nominated for the Evening Standard and Drama  League Awards. From 2009 to 2017, Fairchild performed as a Principal Dancer with the New  York City Ballet. His other theater credits include Monster in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein  (Signature Theater, Chita Rivera Award), Harry Beaton in Brigadoon (New York City Center),  Will Parker in Oklahoma! (Royal Albert Hall, London), Mike Costa in A Chorus Line  (Hollywood Bowl), and Bill Calhoun in Kiss Me Kate (Roundabout Theater Company’s 2017  Gala). Television: Étoile (Prime Video), Soundtrack (Netflix), Mixtape (FOX Pilot), Julie’s  Greenroom (Netflix), Oklahoma! (BBC Proms), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Carousel Boy  in NY Philharmonic’s Carousel (PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center), Dancing With The Stars, The  Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Live with Kelly and Michael, CBS Sunday Morning, and 60  Minutes. Film: Tom Hooper's Cats, An American in Paris Live (West End Production), The  Chaperone and NY Export: Opus Jazz. Represented by CAA. @robbiefairchild

  • Al Blackstone is an Emmy-winning director, choreographer, and educator. A former Broadway performer (Wicked the Musical), his passion for bringing people together to experience something meaningful drives him to make dances, tell stories, and encourage joyful connection. Born in New Jersey and raised in a dance studio, he has called New York City home for more than a decade. In that time he has created emotional work for the stage and screen, thrown dance parties for charity, and introduced hundreds of people to one another. With a focus on storytelling and a deep love of jazz dance, Blackstone “infuses his work with humor, theatrical flair, and sharp technique- a combo that has earned him many fans (NY TIMES)". Inspired by generations of dance educators before him, Al’s dance classes are known around the world for their positive energy and unifying structure and his influence can be see in many of the young teachers and choreographers of today. He has been on faculty at JUMP Dance Convention since 2012 and his classes at Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway helped define theater jazz for the 21st century. Al is also the cofounder of MOMEN NYC, an NYC-based brand focused on providing memorable experiences for adult dancers, deepening their love of dance and strengthening their sense of togetherness. Awards include the 2011 Capezio ACE Award, 2018 Carbonell Award for Best Choreography, and the 2020 Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for Variety/Reality Programming.

    He resides in Queens with his husband Abraham and has kept a journal since he’s 12.

  • Wendy Whelan is the Associate Artistic Director of New York City Ballet. One of the most acclaimed dancers of her generation, she followed a storied 30-year career at NYCB with a variety of multi-disciplinary projects with cultural organizations around the world. She was named NYCB Associate Artistic Director in February 2019. As a dancer with NYCB, Whelan counted principal roles in more than 125 ballets in her repertory, dancing virtually all of the major Balanchine roles, working closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his works, and was also the dancer most choreographed on in NYCB history, creating leading roles in more than 50 new works by such choreographers as William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Jorma Elo, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Wayne McGregor, Peter Martins, and numerous others. Following her retirement from NYCB in 2014, she cultivated multidisciplinary performance projects with a range of collaborators including choreographers Kyle Abraham, Joshua Beamish, Brian Brooks, Alejandro Cerrudo, Lucinda Childs, Daniele Désnoyers, Javier De Frutos, David Neumann, Annie-B Parson, and Arthur Pita.

    Whelan began studying dance in Louisville with Virginia Wooton, a local teacher, and at the Louisville Ballet Academy. In 1981 she received a scholarship to the Summer Course at the School of American Ballet and a year later, enrolled as a full-time student at SAB. She was named an apprentice with NYCB in 1984 and joined the corps de ballet in 1986. She was promoted to Soloist in 1989 and to Principal Dancer in 1991. Her awards include the Dance Magazine Award in 2007, and in 2009 she was given a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. In 2011, she received both the Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement in Performance.

  • Born in Santa Cruz, California, Sascha began studying ballet in the San Francisco Bay area with Ayako Takahashi and Damara Bennett. At 15, he left home to train at Moscow’s Bolshoi Academy, under Pyotr Pestov, and at the Kirov Academy in Washington, D.C., under Roudolf Kharatian and Andrei Garbouz.

    Radetsky joined American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in 1995 and its corps de ballet in 1996. He was promoted to Soloist with ABT in 2003, and retired from the Company in 2014. He also danced as a principal or guest principal with the Dutch National Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Berlin Staatsballett, and several other international companies.

    Radetsky was named Artistic Director of ABT Studio Company in August 2018. He has served as Director of the ABT/NYU Master’s in Ballet Pedagogy Program since 2016 and is a Company Teacher with American Ballet Theatre. He has taught for institutions such as ABT’s JKO School, the Royal Ballet School, Youth America Grand Prix, Dance Theatre of Harlem, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Interlochen Arts Academy, Adelphi University, Rutgers University, and Ballet West Academy. He has lectured at Woodburne Correctional Facility, University of California at Santa Barbara, and AMDA College and Conservatory. He has choreographed for the Julliard School, Bucknell University, and Under Armour athletic wear. He has written for Vogue, Newsweek, Playbill, Dance Magazine, Pointe, Dance Spirit, and the programs of the Paris Opera Ballet and the Royal New Zealand Ballet. He starred in the films Center Stage and Center Stage 3, in Mandy Moore’s music video I Wanna Be With You, the Starz television series Flesh and Bone, and Hallmark Channel’s A Nutcracker Christmas. He studied at Long Island University and St. Mary’s College, and served as a fall 2015 artistic fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts.

Special Talk / Q&A

  • Born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in San Pedro, California, Misty Copeland began her ballet studies at the age of 13 at the San Pedro City Ballet. At the age of 15 she won first place in the Music Center Spotlight Awards. She then began her studies at the Lauridsen Ballet Center. Copeland has studied at the San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive on full scholarship and was declared ABT’s National Coca-Cola Scholar in 2000. Copeland joined ABT Studio Company in September 2000, joined American Ballet Theatre as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001, and was appointed a Soloist in August 2007. She was promoted to Principal Dancer in August 2015. Her roles with the Company include Terpsichore in Apollo, Gamzatti, a Shade and the Lead D’Jampe in La Bayadère, Milkmaid in The Bright Stream, the Fairy Autumn in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, Blossom in James Kudelka’s Cinderella, Swanilda and the Mazurka Lady in Coppélia, Gulnare and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, Kitri, Mercedes, Driad Queen, the lead gypsy and a flower girl in Don Quixote, Duo Concertant, the Masks in Christopher Wheeldon’s VIII, Lise in Las Fille mal gardée, the Firebird in Alexei Ratmansky’s Firebird, Flower Girl in Gaîté Parisienne, Giselle, Zulma and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, Queen of Shemakahn in The Golden Cockerel, Pierrette in Harlequinade, the title role in Jane Eyre, Manon and Lescaut’s Mistress in Manon… Read more at: www.abt.org/people/misty-copeland/?type=performer