SP Student Dances at Kirov Academy of Ballet

The following was submitted to Patch by Shelley Linehan.

After years of watching her three older brothers on the football field, lacrosse field and wrestling mat, it appears that those boys get to spend more time in the theater watching their sister do her thing. 

Last summer, Caroline Linehan, 11, accepted an invitation to attend the prestigious Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington D. C. as a year-round student on a substantial artistic merit scholarship.

Caroline auditioned in February of 2011 for the summer intensive and received her acceptance letter three days later.  While attending the summer intensive, she received an invitation and was offered a significant artistic scholarship to attend Kirov’s year-round program.

Kirov is a pre-professional boarding school where serious ballet students train in the pedagogy based on the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the performance aesthetic of The Kirov Ballet.  The school holds auditions internationally and invites 70 students to train at their institution each year.  

The students board at the school and study academics as well as ballet coming from all over the world.  This past year, Caroline trained in their world-renown artistic program while commuting from her Anne Arundel County home six days a week. 

Caroline, a sixth-grader, is homeschooled and lives with her parents, Tom and Shelley Linehan, three older brothers, two dogs and her cat in Millersville, MD.

Caroline began dancing when she was four years old at the Edna Lee Dance Studio in Linthicum where her mother was a dance instructor for several years.  While taking classes with her mother, Caroline also worked from the age of seven with Ashley Canterna Hardy, a scholarship graduate of the Kirov Academy of Ballet, winner of the 2000 Junior Youth America Grand Prix and international ballet silver medalist. 

According to her mother, Canterna Hardy and Caroline immediately clicked and an amazing relationship was formed.

For the previous two summers, Caroline auditioned, accepted and attended the American Ballet Theater’s (ABT) Young Dancer Program in New York City.  She and her mother had the pleasure of studying together when her mother also trained with ABT’s National Teacher Training Program and received her ABT certification while her daughter danced across the hall.

“It’s been such fun getting to share my own lifelong passion with my only daughter. Her talent and enthusiasm for the art have surpassed anything I could have imagined.  We have many great memories and are just having a blast.  She has been an absolute joy to teach and watch on the stage.  She continually surprises me with her ability,” said Shelley Linehan. 

Submitted to Patch by Shelley Linehan