West LA Dancers Take the Broad Stage

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When American Ballet Theatre principal Calvin Royal III steps onto the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage on Saturday night for Westside Ballet of Santa Monica's Masters of Movement Gala, he will join an unlikely chorus: roughly 60 student dancers, out of 130 in the full program, who live or go to school in West LA neighborhoods. They will share the weekend's three-show program. They live or study in Mar Vista, Venice, Marina del Rey, Brentwood, Westwood, Bel Air, and West LA. They attend dozens of different schools. What they have in common is the studio on Stewart Street where they train at Westside School of Ballet, the oldest ballet school in Los Angeles, co-founded in 1967 by New York City Ballet's Yvonne Mounsey and Royal Ballet's Rosemary Valaire.

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Westside Ballet's 2026 spring season has been framed around the argument that ballet, far from being a dying art form, is broadening: that the people drawn to it now arrive from many directions, and that the form itself is large enough to hold them. Calvin Royal III is one example. He did not begin formal ballet training until age 14, after a childhood spent moving between army bases with his military family before settling in Tampa, where his grandmother fostered his arts education. Two years later he was a Youth America Grand Prix finalist on full scholarship to ABT. He is now one of the few Black principal dancers at a major American company.

Sixty West LA kids are living a quieter version of that same argument. They are studying alongside one another at the same training institution, but where they come from and where they want to go could not be more varied.

The Soloists

Four local dancers carry soloist roles across the weekend.

Spencer Collins (13) of WLA is one of six featured soloists in Paquita, the Petipa-Minkus showpiece staged by Sophie Monat and Adrian Blake Mitchell. He has spent the past year collecting youth ballet's most coveted honors, including the Hope Award at YAGP 2025 Finals, and first-place classical and contemporary finishes at YAGP 2026 Semi-Finals. He puts the moment plainly. “It's fun being able to dance a solo from such a renowned ballet.”

Addison Russell is also 13. She dances the featured role in Excerpts from Faust alongside Mavis Meredith and Ivy White. Her family lost their home in the January Palisades fires and is currently in Bel Air. Addison has spent three summers training at the School of American Ballet in New York and one at American Ballet Theatre. Asked how she keeps her balance, she points to her younger brothers' baseball games and the most extreme rollercoasters she can find. “These adventures give me a good balance to the discipline and structure that ballet provides.”

Charlotte Sachs, 18, of Mar Vista, heads to NYU Tisch School of the Arts this fall for a BFA in Dance. This weekend she performs the Cupid variation, a featured youth solo within Paquita, and also dances in Algorithm and Places. She is the only one of the four soloists for whom this performance is also a goodbye.

Lyla Brugger, 17, of Brentwood, is among the featured soloists in Paquita. One of the most advanced dancers in the program at Level 7, she has spent years climbing through Westside's training levels to reach the company's top tier alongside dancers a year from professional careers.

What Younger Dancers Notice

The youngest dancers in the program are 9 and 10, and their observations are the freshest in the bunch.

Jeanne is 10, a fourth-grader at Kenter Canyon Elementary in Brentwood, and dances in My Favourite Things, the new ballet by Katarzynka Kropinski set to Rodgers & Hammerstein. She has been thinking about what happens in the seconds before the curtain rises. “It's a mix of pure excitement and slight fear. As soon as the curtain opens and the music starts, I forget about the fear.”

Mathilde, 11, attends Richland Elementary and dances the Peasant Dances from Giselle. Her friends at school find the whole enterprise impressive in a way that surprises her. “They're impressed by my dedication and how good I am.”

Cadence, 11, attends St. Martin of Tours School and dances the Children's Polonaise from Paquita. She has internalized something her teacher said in class. “My teacher says, ‘If you are bored it means that you are not working hard enough.’ I think about this in school to motivate myself.”

The Math of a School Week

The older dancers describe a recurring theme: the arithmetic of fitting ballet around homework.

“Most people underestimate the difficulty of balancing school work and ballet,” says Olivia Yu, 14, a Harvard-Westlake eighth-grader who dances in the Faust corps. “To me, it's extremely impressive to see other dancers continue ballet throughout their childhood, succeed, and go on to have an incredible career.”

Amina, 13, a Palms Middle School seventh-grader, has been at Westside since she was a year old. This is her first Spring Performance. “Everyone my age, even if they are doing sports, it's maximum three times a week. Having to explain why I do ballet five times a week and why I'm so busy all the time can be hard.”

Clara, 13, a Paul Revere Charter Middle student who dances Champagne Polka and one of the Rich Man's Frug “Boys” roles, frames the same tradeoff as a choice she is glad to be making. “Most people don't realize how much of ballet happens outside the studio. Sometimes that means saying no when friends want to hang out, but it's totally worth it because I love what I do.”

The Long Look Forward

The futures these dancers are aiming for are as varied as the schools they attend.

Lauren Gordon is 12 and at Notre Dame Academy. She dances the Peasant Dances from Giselle and plans to join a ballet company, become a principal dancer, and study finance in college. Olivia wants Ivy League admission, ballet alongside college, and to start her own business. Kaylee, 11, of Broadway Elementary, dances the Children's Polonaise from Paquita and wants to be a doctor. Her quote about her mother is one of the warmest in the bunch. “My mom was a theatre major in college, but then changed to Political Science because of the internal pressures she received about it not being a ‘real major.’ I think because of those experiences, it pushed her to let me pave my own path.”

Archer Anderson, 16, attends the Archer School for Girls. She dances Paquita in the Gala, performs a pas de deux with Christopher Toledo in Les Sylphides, and appears in Who Cares, Algorithm, and Places. “Westside Ballet was the first professional ballet production I ever saw. I was four years old. I still remember how it made me feel. I am so excited to be able to dance in the Spring Gala and bring that joy to children who may be enjoying ballet for the first time.”

Ilyssa Freedland is 16, lives in West LA, attends Wildwood School, and this is her seventh Spring Performance. She dances in Paquita, Who Cares, Places, and Algorithm. “There is always another challenge to strive for. Yet, at the same time, it is in a way therapeutic. You get to shut the whole world out and focus on you and your ballet.”

Westside Ballet of Santa Monica has been making a case for inclusion in classical ballet since its founding in 1973. The school has long emphasized that the door is open — it is non-audition by design — and the nonprofit performance company raises funds to provide scholarships for academy students whose families cannot otherwise afford training. Spring is the season the school chose long ago for its annual showcase: the moment of renewal and rebirth, when the form passes from one generation of dancers to the next.

The closing word goes to Charlotte, the senior heading to NYU Tisch this fall. “As a senior, I reflect upon my time at Westside fondly. As I pursue a career in contemporary dance, I can acknowledge both the grace and grit that ballet has instilled in me. I will miss my Westside Ballet family more than anything.”

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Westside Ballet of Santa Monica's Masters of Movement Spring Performances run Friday, May 29 through Sunday, May 31 at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. Spring Showcase tickets $50; Gala tickets $195. Tickets and showtimes at westsideballet.com/SpringTix

WLA Group Photo Caption Continued: Pictured (by level): Level 7: Koko Miyamoto, Spencer Collins, Lyla Brugger, Charlotte Sachs. Level 6+: Zoe White, Josephine Le Blanc, Mila Bakhshandehpour, Ilyssa Freedland. Level 6: Archer Anderson, Kali Solomon. Level 5+: Luna Alatorre, Chloe Meyer, Alexandra Moccia, Delilah Stoddard. Level 5: Olivia Yu, Addison Russell, Heath Olvera. Level 4+: Clara Ditter, Ellington Zucker, Kaia Sappington, Laurel O'Donnell, Liliana Castro, Valentina Finci, Evangeline Turner. Level 4: Mackenzie Olesky, Carlin McCaffrey, Lauren Gordon, Charlotte ("Charlie") Martin, Zoe Rembuskos, Alix Weissbecker Kushner, Mathilde Guay, Kaya Fleming-Cordon, Amina Aitekenova. Level 3+: Lucille Hyams, Cadence Russell-Cruz, Chloe Carter, Mila Spiegel, Adrian Ikonnikov Hayes, Billie White, Chloe Maurin, Freja Kiel, Kaylee Barrow, Leona King, Vivien O'Hara. Level 3: Jeanne Esselin, Savannah Heffernan, Sylvie Buchholz, Ram Sholklapper.

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