Ballet Mississippi

Ballet Mississippi performancesapproximately 3000 patrons attended Ballet Mississippi performances during the year ending 6/30/2023. In december, Ballet Mississippi presented the nutcracker, which offered people throughout the southeast the opportunity to celebrate the holiday season through the enjoyment and appreciation of this Ballet classic. The production featured guest artists emily bromberg and rainer krenstetter of the miami city Ballet. Ballet Mississippi held a free performance for city of jackson employees, a "Ballet, blue jeans, and beer" casual evening performance aimed for young professionals, and two matinee performances for the general public. School performances have also been suspended because of covid-19 issues. Ballet Mississippi continues to present a year-end performance for all students in the Ballet Mississippi school. This performance has been an annual event every may at the belhaven center for the arts.

Ballet Mississippi outreachballet Mississippi has had to essentially suspend its outreach program in the jackson public schools because of the lingering issues of covid-19, lack of faculty and finances to pursue this goal. However, in 2023 Ballet Mississippi extended its outreach to offer Ballet classes at jackson preparatory school in flowood, ms, st. luke's united methodist church in jackson, ms and st. anthony catholic school in madison ms. Ballet Mississippi is working at redeveloping its outreach into the jackson public schools in the 2024-2025 school year. Community partnerships served as an important vehicle to increase audience accessibility. Ballet Mississippi performed at blair e. batson's children's hospital and the st. andrew's episcopal school arts on the green event. Other partnerships include the madison county library in madison, ms.

Ballet Mississippi schoolballet Mississippi offers classes and performing opportunities for students of all ages, from age three to adult. The school's focus is classical Ballet and students complement their training with classes in different styles of dance throughout the year. All students participate in the year-end performance. The Ballet Mississippi faculty instructed classes for approximately 200 students and in summer classes led by guest artists as well as Ballet Mississippi faculty. The Ballet Mississippi faculty is led by artistic director, david keary. Lisa hess jones joined the faculty in august 2022 and recently appointed as associate artistic director for Ballet Mississippi. Both keary and lisa hess jones are former members of the new york city Ballet, and both were personally invited by george balanchine to join the new york city Ballet. Ballet Mississippi holds the distinction that its top two artistic directors were long time members of this prestigious company and now training Mississippi's children. The Ballet Mississippi school has continued to offer a two-week intensive workshop with faculty from all of the united states. Other workshops focus on the very young dancers that train at Ballet Mississippi.