BALLSTON SPA — The community of Saratoga Springs welcomes the Youth Ballet (SSYB) non-profit aimed at providing quality professional dance training to pre-professional students.
Cristiane Santos and Joan K Anderson started their non-profit this year after working together for eight-years. The two professional dancers decided to open their own ballet school to focus on proper ballet training and technique.
“We have been working together for quite some time and the two of us have a similar vision on how we think a good ballet and dance training ought to be,” K Anderson said.
Santos added: “We wanted to have a dance school that can bring something back to the community. Not just about us teaching the students, we want to offer services to the community besides the dance classes...we also would like to build a scholarship fund to eventually offer a scholarship for a students who doesn’t have access to dance education.”
Through SSYB, students can achieve their potential as dancers and artists while learning in a collaborative environment. A focus is put on building self-confidence and maturity in a nurturing atmosphere and SSYB places an emphasis on performance and positive reinforcement. Dancers learn the value of hard work and garner an appreciation and love for the arts.
The non-profit offers classes in ballet, pointe, modern, contemporary, and conditioning for dancers ages three to adult.
“Our youngest student is three-years-old,” K Anderson said. “[We] offer a few open classes to adults and older teens who perhaps don’t want to do the rigorous schedule, but they just want come in and do a contemporary class.”
Any interested student needs to register and pay in advance to help SSYB social distance. Any dancer coming into the building will have their temperature checked parents will not be allowed in to the building. There is a registration limit.
“In person classes, for the younger age group the max is eight [dancers] for the older students its ten [dancers],” Santos said. “The classes that we are doing hybrid, some in the classroom some virtual, we are only going to accept four-kids for the virtual class if we have ten-in person.”
Classes will begin Sept. 14 and run through June 2021. Santos and Kilgore-Anderson said they hope to offer a 2021 summer camp. Interest community members can register and find more information on their website at www.saratogaspringsyouthballet.org.
K Anderson first danced professionally with Cedar Lake II and went on to dance with Philadanco, the Philadelphia Dance Company, where she was a senior member and toured extensively both nationally and internationally. She performed many ballet and modern classics as well as contemporary and new works by renowned choreographers from around the world.
Cristiane Santos Founder, Co-Artistic Director Santos danced and taught ballet and tap for seven years at Ballet Vera Bublitz in Brazil. She was accepted to Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) school with a full scholarship and joined the company’s Dancing Through Barriers Ensemble through which she performed in lecture demonstrations at public schools around the country, taught movement classes in NYC public schools, and performed with DTH during its 30th anniversary season.
SSYB is located at 418 Geyser Rd., Ballston Spa, and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
