Carol Bellis received her training on scholarship at the School of American Ballet, official school of the New York City Ballet. She danced with the Garden State Ballet and has taught for Garden State Ballet School, Gloria Govrin’s New Hope Ballet Academy, the School of Performing Arts at Somerset Vo-Tech, and NJ Governor’s School. Bellis has been a member of the Princeton Ballet faculty for over 30 years, and is the principal of the Cranbury studio and the Coordinator of Princeton Ballet School’s summer programs. She is a two time recipient of the Audrée Estey Award for Excellence in Dance Education. Bellis is also an Adjunct Professor of Ballet at Rider University.
Archives: People
Eileen Nelson
Eileen Nelson joined ARB’s staff as the Development Associate in August of 2021. Prior to joining American Repertory Ballet, Eileen was the Development Associate at NORWESCAP and the Development Operations Associate at Princeton Theological Seminary focusing on gift processing, prospect research, and donor database management. Her work involved streamlining processes, increasing efficiency and accuracy, and generating requested information. After having worked in higher education and nonprofit organizations, Eileen is looking forward to the opportunity to continue to work in development at ARB.
Mandy Donato
Mandy Donato started her career at American Repertory Ballet in 2018 as a Dance Power teaching artist and subsequently took on the role of assistant children’s stage manager for their annual Nutcracker that fall. With extensive training in dance, gymnastics, and baton twirling, she developed a passion for behind-the-scenes work in studio management, dedicating her off-dance hours to mastering the skills needed to run a successful school. Now, she sits as the Office Manager at Princeton Ballet School while also serving as the PBCW and PBW Coordinator and acting as Children’s Stage Manager during productions.
Jaclyn Vela
Leighton Chen
Egan Jimenez
Egan is a Visual Design Specialist at Princeton University where he works on different design projects involving photography, graphic design, and video production.
Eduardo Patino
Eduardo Patino is a professional photographer in New York City, serving an international clientele spanning the worlds of the Performing Arts to the Corporate arena.
With a unique background as a high school and college football quarterback, turned theater director and professional dancer, Eduardo brings to his work a passion for Art and an extraordinary understanding of the human figure.
His understanding of the athleticism and artistic sensibilities come from his former career as a dancer. A career-ending injury redirected him to his earliest “mother driven” pursuit – Photography.
Eduardo’s clients depend on him for forward-thinking, style-driven advertising, promotion and publicity shots, posters and magazine covers.
His photography communicates a strong sense of timing, movement, shape and line. His knowledge for how the body moves allows him to capture the exact peak of a movement or a moment, whether in full body or dynamic portrait.
Both in the studio and on location Eduardo’s superbly efficient technical skills and control of light, combined with his easygoing, direct nature, makes the subject of his lens, comfortable and trusting. Qualities that provided exceptional results, for a vast Clientele.
Specialties: Conception, Exploration, Production, Casting, Efficient Execution and Creation; to name a few, relating to the business of Photography.
Rosalie O’Connor
Rosalie O’Connor was born in Vienna, Austria and raised in New Orleans. She moved to New York City at the age of 15, to attend The School of American Ballet. At 17, she became a professional dancer with American Ballet Theatre, where she remained for fifteen years until her retirement in 2002. Rosalie began photographing the company from within. For her last six years she juggled both passions and taught herself on the job. In addition to most dance periodicals, her photographs have also appeared in Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New York Times. Rosalie’s images have been displayed in solo exhibitions at Lincoln Center in New York and The John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts, in Washington, DC. She resides in New York City yet she travels extensively for assignments as a freelance photographer.
Harald Schrader
Harald Schrader, a formally trained photographer and long-time Princeton resident, studied in Berlin and Hannover in Germany. He began his career photographing still life and architecture. He honed his craft in portrait photography, acting as first assistant to Mary Ellen Mark in New York City and Dieter Eikelpoth in Düsseldorf and London. He has been especially fascinated by the challenge of depicting the human form in movement, resulting in his passion for photographing the performing arts, dance in particular. Harald also thrives on discovering new cultures and languages. He has collaborated with performing and visual artists in Italy, Germany, the U.S.A. and Canada.
David Fernandez
Award-winning contemporary choreographer and dance filmmaker, master teacher from NYC. Ballet, contemporary, modern dance. International ballet competitions.
David’s most acclaimed choreography, Five Variations on a Theme, was created for New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Joaquin De Luz. The work premiered as part of the acclaimed Kings of the Dance tour. It was performed to standing ovations in NYC, LA, London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa. Other notable choreography commissions include pieces created for leading dancers of the American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Kings of the Dance Tour, Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble, Youth America Grand Prix Gala Concert, and many others.
David is an award-winning filmmaker: his latest dance-on-film accomplishments include the Los Angeles Olympus Film Festival Award for Best Public Service Announcement. David’s award-winning short, Moving Though It — Phases of an Emergency Through Dance, uses a revolutionary approach of making a public service announcement through dance. Ideated and directed by David Fernandez, the project was commissioned and sponsored by the NYC Emergency Management and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.
Other film festival achievements include:
Moving Through It; Official Selection Best Short Competitions, 2019;
White Shirt, Black Tie, Black Pants XXS, Director and Choreographer. The short premiered at the Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center in 2012;
Objects in Mirror are Closer Than They Appear, Director and Choreographer. Premiered at Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center in 2007;
Icarus APR, Director and Choreographer. Premiered at Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center in 2009.