FACULTY AND STAFF

Ballet Mistress Karina grew up in a theater family, and she fell in love with ballet at a very young age and performed in professional ballet productions since age of 5. She studied classical ballet, character dance, choreography, piano and music history at Lithuanian National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art and graduated from Ukrainian L’viv State Choreographic School. As part of her studies she performed in classical ballet productions of “Sleeping Beauty”, “Cinderella”, “Nutcracker” in Vilnius and L’viv Ballet Theaters. After graduation she performed as a principal dancer at Odessa Academic Theatre of Musical Comedy where she danced solos and ensemble for classical operettas such as “The Merry Widow”, “Die Flittermouse”, “Die Bajadere”, “The Csárdás Princess”, “The Gypsy Baron” as well as contemporary musical favorites like “My Fair Lady”, “Pinocchio” and others. After moving to US Karina performed with Sonia Plumb Dance Company in the production of “Letting Go” and taught classical ballet by the Method of Vaganova (Russian School), point, modern and jazz at multiple dance studios and schools of New England. She has been a resident Ballet Mistress at New England Dance and Gymnastics Center since 1997, choreographed and trained many national winning routines and champions. Miss Karina is an active certified member of Dance Educators of America since 2001. She lives in Simsbury, CT with her husband, daughter and two cats, and when she is not teaching dance she works as a Software Quality Engineer.