Third Annual Summer Intensive

The 2007 Two-Week Summer Intensive
presented by Ballet Santa Barbara
at the Center Stage Theater
July 2nd-14th, 2007

Technical Discipline together with
Artistic and Creative Exploration

  • Ballet, Contemporary Technique
  • Baroque Dance, Jazz, and Salsa
  • Music for Dancers and Choreography
  • Student Performance at Center Stage Theater

View More Details or See More Photos

Modern Dance

The students in Christina Sanchez's modern work
Photo: ©2007 David Bazemore

Ballet Santa Barbara, presented its third annual Two-Week Summer Intensive for experienced dancers ages 13 and older. Dancers with intermediate ballet technique or higher took classes in a variety of techniques including ballet, Baroque dance, modern, jazz, salsa, improvisation, and music for dancers. A public performance by the students took place at Center Stage Theater on Saturday, July 14th.

Our experienced faculty included:

Carrie Diamond, Improvisation and Collaboration. Artistic Director, BSB's Summer Intensive and Company. 23 years NYC experience as professional dancer, teacher, director, and choreographer.

Lizabeth Skalski, Guest Teacher, Ballet. Former NYC professional dancer. Associate Director, Main Street Ballet, Woodbury, CT

Carlos Fittante, Guest Teacher, Baroque Dance, Artistic Director, BALAM, NYC professional dancer, teacher, choreographer. Artistic Associate of BSB.

Christina Sanchez, Contemporary technique. Principal Dancer and Artistic Associate of BSB. Danced with Alvin Ailey and Complexions

Denise Woods, Jazz. Dancer with BSB. Graduate of Cal State Long Beach, currently instructor for Santa Barbara Jazz Dance Academy

Eric Valinsky, Music for Dancers. BSB Music Director. Doctorate, Columbia University, NYC. Composer and pianist

About the Faculty

CARRIE DIAMOND
Founder, Artistic DirectorCarrie Diamond
Carrie Diamond returned to California in 2002 after many years as dance professional in New York City. She founded Ballet Santa Barbara in 2005, a professional ballet company and training venue for local dancers including an annual summer intensive program for young dancers. She began her career in Los Angeles, dancing with the Storie-Crawford Dance Theatre Ensemble and studying ballet with Don Hewitt. In New York City, she studied with such luminaries as Margaret Craske, Benjamin Harkarvy and Jacque D’Amboise and performed and toured extensively with the New York Theatre Ballet. She has particularly enjoyed dancing principal and soloist roles in the works of such choreographers as José Limón, Kurt Joos, Ohad Nahirin, and Benjamin Harkarvy. In 1990, she founded the New American Ballet Ensemble, a New York City company that promoted new music and choreography, commissioning two ballets by Harkarvy as well as choreographing many of her own. She has taught ballet for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and for the 92nd St Y and was the Co-Director for the Harkness Youth Ballet. Ms. Diamond holds an MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a certified teacher for children through DEL (Dance Education Laboratory). She has choreographed locally for several musical productions including the Santa Barbara Theater production of Peter Pan and student productions at Dos Pueblos High School, the Crane School, and Santa Barbara City College.
LIZABETH SKALSKI
Guest Teacher and ChoreographerLizabeth Skalski
Lizabeth Skalski has been the Associate Director at Main Street Ballet in Woodbury, CT since 1999 where she teaches ballet, pointe and is the principal choreographer for the dance company. Her guest teaching credits include: The Hartford Conservatory; School for Creative and Performing Arts, Cincinnati, OH; Covenant Dance Studio, Brooklyn, NY; as well as schools in Canada, Taiwan and China. Rather than instructing students in any single ballet technique, Ms. Skalski’s teaching style uses the best aspects of the Ceccetti, School of American Ballet, French, and Russian schools which is reflected by her training from New York’s most innovative ballet teachers: Lawrence Rhodes, Finis Jhung, Nadine Revene, Igal Perry, Melissa Hayden and modern dance teachers Lar Lubovich, David Gordon, Lynn Simonson,Don Redlich, and Robyn Cutler. Ms. Skalski has created over twenty-five original contemporary ballets and original choreography for Oklahoma, Phantom of the Opera, Three Penny Opera and Oliver which have been presented throughout New York, Connecticut and by Ballet Santa Barbara. Critics in Dance Magazine, The New York Times and New York Newsday have heralded her work. As a dancer, Ms. Skalski performed throughout the United States and Asia with New York based Chen & Dancers, Baba Dancers as well as with Downtown Ballet, New American Ballet Ensemble, Santa Barbara Ballet Theatre and Carlton Smith Ballet Chicago. Ms Skalski holds a MFA in dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
CARLOS FITTANTE
Guest ArtistCarlos Fittante
Carlos Fittante is a dance artist of remarkable diversity who specializes in Balinese and Baroque dance. He is a graduate of the School of American Ballet and has a BA in Dance from Empire State College (SUNY). He studied with ballet master Benjamin Harkarvy who created two ballets on him while dancing with the New American Ballet Ensemble. Other ballet credits include New York Theatre Ballet, Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and the Universal Ballet Company in Seoul, Korea. Since 1990, he has been the artistic director of BALAM Dance Theatre, a contemporary dance company inspired by Balinese theatre and founded by Islene Pinder. He has performed internationally and studied extensively in Bali and Indonesia. As a Baroque dance specialist he has been featured in a number of Baroque operas including soloist roles for New York City Opera’s production of Rinaldo, and the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of Thesée. He danced principal roles with the New York Baroque Dance Company during the period of 1989-2002 and also served as rehearsal director. His choreographic work in East/West fusion, contemporary, and baroque styles has been presented at a number of New York festivals and venues including DUMBO Dance Festival, COOL Festival, and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. He teaches Mask & Gesture at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and Balinese and Baroque dance at Peridance Center in New York.
CHRISTINA SANCHEZ
Christina Sanchez
Christina Sanchez has relocated to Santa Barbara this past year after sixteen years in New York City. She attended the San Francisco School of the Arts and later decided to continue her dance education in NYC, where she received training on scholarship at the Alvin Ailey School. She has had the privilege of being a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as well as Ailey II. It was there that she performed the works of such noted choreographers such as Alvin Ailey, Judith Jamison, Ron Brown, Donald Byrd, Bill T. Jones, Lar Lubovitch, Barry Martin, Earl Mosley, Kevin Wynn, and Shapiro and Smith among others. She has also danced with Ballet Hispanico, Buglisi/Foreman Dance, and most recently with Complexions Contemporary Ballet under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson.
DENISE WOODS
Dancer and TeacherDenise Woods
Denise Woods, a native of southern California, received her B.A. in Communications and minor in Dance as an honorable mention undergraduate from Cal State University of Long Beach. Extensively studying ballet and various forms of dance for over 15 years, Denise’s training began at California Dance Theatre with Kim Masseli and Stanley Holden, then later returning as guest artist in their Pacific Festival Ballet Theatre and on to be featured in classical and contemporary work at the Cal State Long Beach Dance Department with Alaine Haubert and Sophie Monat-Gaydos, with the Long Beach Ballet Theatre under mentor and teacher David Wilcox, and as a State Street Ballet scholarship student performing Without Walls by Bill Soleau. Continuing on to NYC this past year, she danced in Peter and the Wolf in Avery Fischer Hall, as well as What is Hip? for choreographer Lonne Moretton in Ballet Builders. She is delighted to be back in California and dancing her first season with Ballet Santa Barbara.
ERIC VALINSKY
Music DirectorEric Valinsky
A native Manhattanite, Eric Valinsky has, for more years than he would like to admit, maintained dual careers in computer systems design and music. He was educated at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the University of Illinois, finally achieving his DMA in music composition from Columbia University. He studied composition with Walter Aschaffenburg, Salvatore Martirano, Jack Beeson, and Darius Milhaud; piano with Sara Crawford Drogheo and Emil Danenberg; and conducting with Harold Farberman. While living in Los Angeles, he became music director and composer-in-residence or The Storie-Crawford Dance Theatre Ensemble. Returning to New York, he served in a similar capacity for Danny Buraczeski's Jazzdance, Uris Bahr and Dancers, and The New American Ballet Ensemble as well as composer-in-residence for The Rachel Harms Dance Company, Opera Uptown, and the Dance Department at City College of New York. He currently moonlights as founder and partner of Plainwrap Solutions, a strategic Internet consulting company.
Folia (Baroque Dance)

The final pose from Carlos Fittante's Folia, a Baroque Dance
Photo: ©2007 David Bazemore