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Artistic Director, Patricia Tomlinson
Patricia Tomlinson has enjoyed a successful ballet career. Her formal training began with Elizabeth Carroll and Melissa Hayden in Saratoga, New York. She continued her studies in New York City at the School of American Ballet where she was coached by George Balanchine, Alexandra Danilova, Peter Martins, and Helgi Tomasson. While studying, Ms. Tomlinson was chosen by Natalia Makarova to perform in her ballet company, Makarova and Company, in New York City. She continued her dance career as a Soloist and Principal with Houston Ballet Company, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Diablo Ballet, working with choreographers and coaches Ben Stevenson, Kenneth MacMillan, Anton Dolin, Glen Tetley, Margot Fonteyn, and Ivan Nagy, to name a few. She represented the United States in the "Masaka Ohya Japan World Ballet Competition" in Osaka, Japan, placing fourth among a group of competitors from 32 countries. She has guest performed, taught and set ballets throughout the United States. Her wide ranging repertoire includes principle roles in "The Nutcracker," "Stars and Stripes," "Serenade," "Carmina Burana,” "The Firebird," "Swan Lake," "Sleeping Beauty," "Les Sylphides," "Coppelia," "Esmeralda," "Apollo," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Ms. Tomlinson also performed in the contemporary works of Glen Tetley, Choo San Goh, John Butler, Lynn Taylor-Corbet, Jerome Robbins, Lar Lubovitch, Paul Taylor, K.T. Nelson, and many other celebrated choreographers. Ms. Tomlinson has been teaching, ballet mistressing and choreographing in the East Bay for over 25 years. She founded the Orinda Ballet Academy in April of 2009, and thoroughly enjoys working with students in the Lamorinda community. From the on-set of Orinda Ballet Academy in 2009, Ms Tomlinson choreographed the Academy's bi-annual holiday production, "A Sweet Dream Nutcracker". She continued to choreograph a full repertory of story ballets for the academy's spring performances, including, "Coppelia", "Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella", "Swan Lake", Alice in Wonderland", "Peter Pan" and "Firebird". Ms Tomlinson earned a BA in the Performing Arts through Saint Mary's College and is a certified Pilates instructor. Ms Tomlinson also has enjoyed teaching company classes to local professional dance troupes. |