TEACHER

Grace Armstrong is from Shoreline, Washington where she began training with Olympic Ballet School. In 2014 and 2015 she competed in the Youth America Grand Prix and was awarded Top 12 in the semi-finals. Grace participated in many intensives throughout her training, in 2019 she was chosen to attend a Forsyth intensive in Madrid. In Spring 2020, she graduated from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with a Bachelor of Science in Ballet with an Outside Field in Arts Management. While at IU, Grace was an instructor with Indiana University’s Pre-College Ballet Program from 2017-2020. After graduation, she joined Oregon Ballet Theatre 2.

TEACHER

Jessica Lind is from San Jose, California, where she began training at Dance Theatre International. Following one year at San Francisco Ballet School, she joined OBT’s Professional Division (2011), became an apprentice (2013), and was promoted to company artist (2016). Her favorite OBT performances and roles include William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, George Balanchine’s Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Nicolo Fonte’s Left Unsaid, Trey McIntyre’s Robust American Love, Purple Girl in Nacho Duato’s Jardí Tancat, Dew Drop in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, and Princess Florine in Christopher Stowell’s The Sleeping Beauty. Lind was promoted to soloist in 2019, and Principal in 2022.

TEACHER

Olivia Ornelas danced professionally with the Oregon Ballet Theater for six years and during that time, she performed in several ballets by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Christopher Stowell, Helen Pickett, Kent Stowell and Nicolo Fonte. In addition to OIBA, she has taught ballet for the Sultanov Russian Ballet Academy, Anya Klimiva-Preston Ballroom Academy, Rose City Rhythmic and Performing Arts Collaborative and Generation Skate 808 Figure Skating club. From Gilbert, AZ, Ornelas grew up studying ballet as well as contemporary, modern, character dancing, flamenco and Pilates.

TEACHER

Beginning her ballet training at age 11, Ophélia Martin-Weber studied a variety of ballet styles such as Classical, Balanchine, and RAD, including some Vaganova. Over the years she was also exposed to contemporary, improv, jazz, tap, broadway, Gyrotonics® and Gyrokinesis®, and several modern techniques. After joining PDX Contemporary Ballet as an apprentice mid-season in 2019, she continued her training at Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet Training Program where she was introduced to beginning pedagogy classes and graduated in 2021. Later that year, she briefly moved to Iowa to be an apprentice at Ballet Des Moines and was an assistant/choreographer for the younger students’ dances in the company’s Nutcracker production. Since returning home to Portland in 2022, Martin-Weber has been teaching and will be starting school in the fall. She’s grateful to be working here at Oregon International Ballet Academy with students of a wide range of ages and levels to improve their technique and provide guidance that values growth, encouragement, and creativity.

TEACHER

Alison Roper joined Oregon Ballet Theatre in 1996 and was promoted into the corps in 1997. Honored by Dance Magazine in 2002 as one of “25 to Watch,” in 2007 she was promoted to principal dancer. Her repertoire includes principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Jerome Robbins, Sir Frederick Ashton, Kent Stowell, Peter Martins, Nacho Duato, Paul Taylor and Bebe Miller. She has originated leading roles in ballets by James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, James Canfield, Christopher Stowell and Nicolo Fonte, among others. Roper spent her summers performing with the Trey McIntyre Project from 2005-2007 and has since worked as a repetiteur and ballet mistress for that company. During the 2010 season she danced with Morphoses; The Christopher Wheeldon company. From Portland, Maine, Roper began her ballet training at age five, receiving training from The Portland School of Ballet, Boston Ballet School and the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre.

GUEST TEACHER

Lisa Kipp has danced with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pacific Ballet Theatre, Ballet Oregon, Ballet of Los Angeles, Ballet Chicago, and James Sewell Dance, and also performed in the touring company of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Kipp danced principal roles in George Balanchine’s Rubies, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Square Dance, Concerto Barocco, and Apollo, and appeared as the Cowgirl in Agnes De Mille’s Rodeo. Prior to joining OBT in 2004, she was the Ballet Department Head for the school of Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle, as well as the company’s Rehearsal Director. Kipp has been the ballet master for OBT for 9 years, and the company’s rehearsal director for 2 years. As a ballet master, she has assisted James Kudelka, Lar Lubovitch, Lola DeAvila, Nicolo Fonte, Francia Russell, Bart Cook, Christine Redpath, Christopher Stowell, Yuri Possokhov, and Helgi Tomasson. She has staged George Balanchine’s Rubies, Square Dance, and Who Cares? for OBT, and is responsible for the corps de ballet in OBT’s classical repertoire.