Learn about the acclaimed guest faculty that will be joining us during Kansas City Ballet School’s 2014 Summer Intensive:
Simon Ball
Simon Ball joined Houston Ballet as a principal dancer in July 2003. He studied with School of American Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, The Conservatory of Point Park College, and The School of Classical Ballet (American Ballet Theatre’s training program). Before becoming a professional, he also performed as a guest artist with many companies in the United States and abroad.
Mr. Ball began his professional career in 1995 where he was a member of the corps de ballet, a soloist, and has been a principal dancer since 2003. Mr. Ball has performed leading roles in many important works including: Prince in The Sleeping Beauty; the slave in Le Corsaire (staged by Anna Marie Holmes and Natalia Dudinskaya); Oberon in Bruce Wells’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the prince in Cinderella (staged by Michael Corder) among others including many George Balanchine works.
Mr. Ball also received a number of prestigious awards including the Margarite Amelita Hoffman scholarship at the international ballet competition in Jackson, Mississippi (1990); the gold medal at the First International Ballet Competition in memory of Rudolf Nureyev (1994) in Budapest, Hungary; and the gold medal at the international ballet competition in Jackson, Mississippi (1994). He was invited to perform at the Benois de la Danse in Berlin, Germany (1999). LEARN MORE
Frances Perez-Ball
Frances Perez-Ball trained at Julian E. Blanco School of Performing Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hartford Ballet School, Eglevsky Ballet, and Point Park College. Frances began her career with Ballet Teatro Municipal de San Juan . As a principal dancer with Ballet Municipal, she toured the U.S. and Latin America performing various roles in full-length ballets such as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Swanhilda in Coppelia, and Kitri in Don Quixote.
Frances joined Boston Ballet in 1995. Her performances with Boston Ballet include featured roles in The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Cinderella, Giselle, Dracula and many more. In 2003 Frances was invited to join Houston Ballet under the direction of Stanton Welch. There she performed works by Mr. Welch including Divergence and In the Garden of Myrth, among others.
Frances was the recipient of the 1999 Copa International Capezio Award for her outstanding work in ballet. She has also been on the teaching staff of Boston Ballet School, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School, The Hope Stone, and the Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive.
Frances is married to Simon Ball – learn more about their story here.
Sarah Lane
Born in San Francisco, California, Sarah Lane began her dance training in Memphis, Tenn. under the direction of Pat Gillespie at the Memphis Classical Ballet. When her family moved to Rochester, New York, she continued instruction with Timothy Draper and Jamey Leverett at the Draper Center for Dance Education.
When Lane was 16, she received a full scholarship to the Boston Ballet’s Summer Program. She’s received many awards and performed at the Kennedy Center as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts.
Lane joined American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in August 2003, a member of the Company’s corps de ballet in April 2004 and a Soloist in August 2007. Her roles with the Company include a Shade in La Bayadère, Galya in The Bright Stream, Blossom in Cinderella, Gulnare in Le Corsaire, among many others. She created the Chinese Dance in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Nutcracker and a role in Demis Volpi’s Private Light.
Lane was a recipient of the Princess Grace Award in 2007 and Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Arts in 2008. She was the dancing double for Natalie Portman in Fox Searchlight Pictures’ feature film Black Swan.
http://blip.tv/dancechanneltv/meet-sarah-lane-5280915
Anna-Marie Holmes
Anna-Marie Holmes has appeared as a ballerina and has taught in more than 30 countries on five continents. She was born in Canada and received her Grade 10 Certificate from the Royal Conservatory of Music in piano. In N.Y. she continued her ballet studies with Felia Dubrovska and trained in Leningrad with Natalia Dudinskaya, Alexander Pushkin and Alla Shelest of the Kirov Ballet. Holmes was the first North American invited to perform with the Kirov Ballet in Russia.
Holmes founded the International Academy of Dance Costa do Sol in Portugal and served as its co-artistic director. She has staged many works, and her staging of Le Corsaire appeared on PBS’s Great Performances, for which it won an Emmy Award.
Holmes joined Boston Ballet in 1985 and in 1997 was named Artistic Director of the company and Dean of Faculty for the Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education. Holmes was Artistic Director of the School of the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi in 1990 and 1994 and, in 1997, she received the Dance Magazine Award for extraordinary and lasting contributions to the art form.
Holmes is very active in her work as a judge for Youth American Grand Prix, travelling throughout the U.S. each year for their preliminary and final competitions. Teaching and staging continues to take her around the globe. She is in constant demand as a judge, guest teacher and choreographer.
http://blip.tv/dancechanneltv/meet-anna-marie-holmes-6464958
To view extensive bios on each guest faculty member, visit our Summer Intensive page and scroll to the bottom.
