Community Corner
Hometown Stage: Forty-Three Santa Monica Dancers in Westside Ballet's Spring Performances
From a Bob Fosse jazz number to Calvin Royal III's Aaron Copland solo, six performances over three days at the Broad Stage, May 29-31.
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Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette of New York City Ballet. Anna Liceica of American Ballet Theatre. Melissa Barak, founder of Los Angeles' Barak Ballet. Generations of professional ballet careers began at one Santa Monica address: Westside School of Ballet, the non-audition academy founded in 1967 by former New York City Ballet dancer Yvonne Mounsey and former Royal Ballet dancer Rosemary Valaire. The school welcomes all students who wish to study ballet, and nearly all of its artistic staff are graduates of the school.
Next weekend, the next generation takes the same stage. Westside Ballet of Santa Monica returns to the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at Santa Monica College May 29 through 31 with its annual Masters of Movement Spring Showcase and Spring Gala. More than 130 dancers are on the program. Forty-three of them live or attend school in Santa Monica.
The Range
The program covers two centuries of repertoire. Marius Petipa's Paquita, first staged for the Imperial Ballet in 1881, opens both the Showcase and the Gala. Mikhail Fokine's Les Sylphides, from 1909, gets a Showcase excerpt featuring Westside-trained sixteen-year-olds Archer Anderson and Christopher Toledo. George Balanchine's Who Cares?, set to Gershwin in 1970, and his Stars and Stripes Pas de Deux, set to Sousa, both appear at the Gala. So does Westside founder Yvonne Mounsey's own choreography from the school's Faust excerpt. The contemporary slate includes Michele Bachar Mendicelli's Algorithm (to music by Goldfrapp), Katarzynka Kropinski's brand-new My Favourite Things (a Rodgers and Hammerstein debut for the youngest dancers), and a Bob Fosse-inspired Rich Man's Frug from Sweet Charity.
The Guest Artists
American Ballet Theatre principal Calvin Royal III headlines the May 30 Gala with a solo set to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, choreographed by Silas Farley. Royal III's path to the top tier of ballet was anything but conventional. Born to a military family that moved from base to base, he and his mother and younger brother eventually settled in Tampa, Florida, with his grandmother, who recognized his interest in music and bought him a keyboard. He didn't begin formal ballet training until he was fourteen. Two years later, he was a finalist at Youth America Grand Prix and on scholarship to ABT, where he is now one of the few Black principal dancers at a major American company.
Los Angeles Ballet lead dancers Kate Inoue and Marcos Ramirez will dance Balanchine's Stars and Stripes Pas de Deux. Inoue trained at Palos Verdes Ballet School before continuing in Osaka, Japan, and at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet; Ramirez began at the Cuban National Ballet School at age ten in Trinidad, Cuba.
The Local Dancers
Junior Isabelle Choy of Windward School is one of five featured Paquita dancers. She has trained at Westside since age six and last year performed in Yvonne Mounsey's Classical Symphony, carrying a piece by the school's founder forward to a new audience.
Lincoln Middle School eighth-grader Mavis Meredith, thirteen, dances a featured role in Excerpts from Faust — the original choreography by Westside founder Yvonne Mounsey, a piece the school has carried forward for generations.
Thirteen-year-old Spencer Collins, a recent YAGP Los Angeles Semi-Finals first-place classical winner and 2025 YAGP Hope Award recipient, dances a featured soloist role in Paquita.
And eight-year-old Dakota Nelson, a Franklin Elementary second-grader, is one of the youngest dancers on the program, performing in the brand-new My Favourite Things. Her ballet teacher is the company's incoming Artistic Director, Adrian Blake Mitchell, and she has very clear opinions about him: "Mr. Mitchell says, 'legs like steel,' and 'if I see your feet in fifth position I'll cut them off and make toe soup.' Why they stick in my head is because it's really funny."
The Awards
The May 30 Gala will honor Dr. Kathryn E. Jeffery, Superintendent and President of Santa Monica College, with Westside Ballet's 2026 BRAVO! Award. Dr. Jeffery is in her final year at SMC before her December retirement. The Huntley Santa Monica Beach Hotel Community Award will go to Eula Fritz of the Santa Monica Police Activities League.
A Leadership Transition
The Spring season also marks Westside Ballet's leadership transition. Martine Harley, who has served as Artistic Director for more than a decade and is herself a Westside alumna and former Houston Ballet dancer, becomes Director of Artistic Operations following the Spring Performances. Adrian Blake Mitchell, also a Westside alumnus and currently Associate Executive Director, steps into the Artistic Director role. Mitchell has led the school's boys' program since 2022, during which enrollment has grown from four students to more than forty across all levels.
Tickets and Performances
Spring Showcase: Friday, May 29 at 7 p.m.; Saturday, May 30 at 1 p.m.; Sunday, May 31 at 1 p.m. ($51.50, including fees.) Spring Gala: Saturday, May 30 at 5:30 p.m. ($196.50, including fees.) All performances at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th Street, Santa Monica. Tickets at westsideballet.com.
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