BalletNext hosts Flex and Pointe Workshops

BalletNext, a small New York City-based company seeking to blur the lines between classical and contemporary ballet, will host two workshops in August led by Artistic Director Michele Wiles and daredevil dancer Jay Donn. The workshops will blend Wiles teaching pointe with Donn teaching his Brooklyn dance style known as “flexing.”

The workshops are set for Saturday, August 8 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturday, August 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Ailey Studios, located at 405 West 55th Street.

Jay Donn is a highly energetic dancer who created the sub-style “Punchlines.” At age 15, he started his dance career on BCAT’s TV show Flex N Brooklyn and saw a boost in his career when his group, Ringmasters, appeared on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew Season 3. Donn has been seen in many music videos alongside Elephant Man, Nicki Minaj, LMFAO Sky Blu, among others, and has been in the feature-films Step Up 3D and FLEX IS KINGS. He’s toured worldwide with LMFAO Sky Blu Big Bad University and Company XIV’s ballet Pinocchio.

Wiles, on the other hand, comes from a dance training steeped in rich classical ballet. Before she founded BalletNext in 2011, she was a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre. She had trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington D.C. on full scholarship. She won a Gold Medal at the 18th International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria, a Bronze Medal in Nagoya, Japan, and was named a finalist at the Paris International Dance Competition. She was a Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship Recipient from 1999 to 2000 and won the Erik Bruhn Prize in 2002. She recently celebrated her formal choreographic debut with BalletNext.

For more information on the workshops or their instructors, head to www.balletnext.com. Registration is now open.

Photo by Albert Ayzenberg, courtesy of balletnext.com.