From Lydia Johnson Dance School:
Ballet can be fresh, creative and professionally taught! Meet the LJD ballet faculty.
The Lydia Johnson Dance (LJD) School is a nonprofit, noncompetitive dance school linked to the acclaimed professional company in New York City. Because the School’s focus is on both student-created choreography and structured dance technique, the ballet classes are unusually vibrant and creative and serve as a springboard to a life’s interest in the arts. LJD dance students are instructed by a faculty of professional dance artists all actively working in the dance field in New York who love teaching.
Laura Di Orio, a West Orange mother of two has been a Principal Dancer and Rehearsal Director for the LJD professional company for over a decade. Laura trained at the Joffrey Ballet School in NYC, and has danced professionally with other classical and contemporary companies including CONTINUUM Contemporary/Ballet and the Staten Island Ballet. Laura often comments that the joy teaching brings her dovetails with her experience as a mother with young children. Laura brings a sense of joy, humor and creativity to her ballet classes. She teaches multiple levels and develops unique class curriculum.
Emily Sarkissian, who has been a member of the LJD company since 2018, teaches the “Ballet for Everyone” class at the LJD School. The class is perfect for all levels – teens who want to dance, actors and athletes, adults interested in rekindling their ballet technique. Emily attended the University of Utah ballet department and has also danced with Elements Contemporary Ballet and ZviDance, among others. Emily has a wonderful sense of humor and is known for her encouraging attitude. She leads her classes with a joyous spirit and attentive eye. Dancers of all ages and skillsets will be welcome in “Ballet for Everyone”.
Maia Culbreath, a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, is the newest member of the LJD company. She recently moved to NYC and is honored to have been accepted into the LJD Company. She has performed with The Richmond Ballet and the Fort Wayne Ballet. She will be teaching “Ballet for Lively Fives” on Saturdays this fall, a fun and creative class for 5-year-olds and Kindergarteners. Maia is warm and caring and brings her strong ballet background to this new class.
The LJD School was founded by Ms. Johnson as an alternative to commercial dance education. The program focuses on process and is warm, welcoming and child-centered. In addition to the ballet program LJD offers Modern/Contemporary classes taught by professional and nurturing dancers in a wide range of techniques including: Limon, Graham, Humphrey, and others.
Lydia Johnson is an acclaimed chorographer with deep roots in SOMA as she brought up her 3 children here. She is passionate about young children learning the wonderful components of choreography and expressing their ideas through dance. Among the many glowing reviews her choreography has received are these:
“What seems to count most for Ms. Johnson is music. The four pieces…all showed uncommon skill at matching ballet movement to music, both at the large scale of structure and in small, felicitous details. Her orchestration of bodies, adding and subtracting, followed the texture of the music wonderfully, coordinating closely with each score’s formal drama”
The New York Times
“Johnson is a craftsman and a poet; her works, which stress the ensemble and attend closely to the music, have an ebb and flow in addition to a strong emotional current. The basis of her technique is ballet, and her dancers are strong.'”
The New Yorker
There’s still time to register for fall classes, which start September 7. To learn more, visit www.lydiajohnsondanceschool.com.
