Archives: People

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Valerie Amiss began her training at age eight under Sue Millington at the Regency Ballet. She continued her instruction with Victor Moreno and Alexei Yudenich, and at age 12 joined the Pennsylvania Ballet School. At age 15, Ms. Amiss spent a summer studying in Saratoga Springs, NY with members of New York City Ballet, including Peter Martins, Heather Watts, and Jock Soto. She was nominated for the prestigious Princess Grace Award in 1994, and in 1995 performed at the Algur H. Meadows Award Ceremony to honor choreographer Paul Taylor. In the summer of that same year, she also performed with the Chautauqua Ballet Company, directed by Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride, and, in 1997, performed at the St. Bart’s Music Festival.

Ms. Amiss joined Pennsylvania Ballet as an apprentice in 1992. She became a member of the corps de ballet in 1993 and was promoted to soloist in 1999. In the summer of that year, she also represented the company at the Sintra Festival in Portugal. And in 2005, Ms. Amiss not only performed at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, where she danced featured roles in Christopher Wheeldon’s Swan Lake, but also performed Matthew Neenan’s 11:11 and Carmina Burana at New York City Center. Additionally, she had the honor of performing twice at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. as well as with Susan Jaffe and Nicole Hlinka for a Rock School benefit.

Ms. Amiss has performed numerous principal roles in the Balanchine repertoire, including Titania and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Odette in Swan Lake Act II, and the Sugarplum Fairy and Dew Drop in The Nutcracker. As well, she danced featured roles in such works as Giselle, Paul Taylor’s Company B, Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, Christopher Wheeldon’s Continuum and Swan Lake, Janek Schergen’s The Sleeping Beauty, Alvin Ailey’s The River, Jerome Robbins’ In the Night and The Concert, and George Balanchine’s Rubies, The Four Temperaments, Western Symphony, Agon, Scotch Symphony, Bugaku, and Serenade, among others.

Ms. Amiss has taught ballet and pointe classes at summer sessions for the Rock School of the Pennsylvania Ballet. As well, she has been a guest instructor at schools throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. For seven years after her retirement from the stage, she was co-ballet mistress for the Academy of Ballet NJ in West Berlin, NJ. Ms. Amiss had the pleasure of teaching ballet to aspiring figure skaters in Aston, Pennsylvania. She was a senior lecturer at the University of the Arts, where she taught several ballet classes, and a guest lecturer at Drexel University where she was asked to speak about Balanchine repertoire for the Philadelphia Museum Of Dance at the Barnes Museum., Ms. Amiss has been a faculty member of The School of Pennsylvania Ballet where she teaches all levels including a beginner ballet at Croft Farms in Cherry hill N.j She also teaches for the Princeton Ballet School in both the Cranbury and Princeton locations.

In 2018,Ms. Amiss was asked by Pennsylvania Ballet outreach program to teach classes for children with Down syndrome. She has taught several ballet classes for children with special needs at St. Katherine Day School in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania and currently teaches Audrey’s class for children of all abilities at the Princeton Ballet School.

Ms. Amiss retired from Pennsylvania Ballet in June 2007. She resides in Mantua, NJ with her husband, former Pennsylvania Ballet Soloist Edward Cieslak, and their son Adam and daughter Lily.

Tanner Bleck started his ballet training at the young age of 7 years old in his hometown of Lexington, KY at Bluegrass Youth Ballet.  At 14, Tanner moved to Tampa, Florida to attend Next Generation Ballet at Patel Conservatory on full merit scholarship studying under Peter Stark.  Tanner was a multi gold medal winner at YAGP (Youth American Grand Prix) and multi scholarship winner performing variations such as Don Quixote, Coppelia, Diane and Acteon, La Fil Mal Gardee, and Satenella .  At 15, he was a finalist at Prix de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland attaining multiple scholarship offers from prestigious ballet companies around the world.  He accepted San Francisco Ballet’s full scholarship offer and moved to San Francisco to continue his dance journey.  As a Trainee with San Francisco Ballet, he learned and performed choreography from some of the top choreographers of today and was in several different performances, such as Nutcracker, Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella, John Neumeier’s Yondering, and the U.S. premiere of Liam Scarlett’s Frankenstein.  Last season, Tanner was with Pennsylvania Ballet II and performed in several ballets such as Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations. On Tanner’s off time from ballet, he enjoys computer games, computer programming, graphic design, and visiting with family and friends. This is Tanner’s second season with ARB.

 

With ARB: 2018

Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky

Shaye Firer was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and raised in Vancouver, Canada. She received her early training at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School and attended various intensive programs such as The National Ballet of Canada, Alberta Ballet, Kaatsbaan International Dance Centre, Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, and Ellison Ballet. Firer joined the inaugural class of American Repertory Ballet’s Trainee program. As a Trainee, she performed company roles in Nutcracker, Our Town, and Glazunov Variations. Since joining American Repertory Ballet, she has performed a variety of lead and featured roles such as Swanhilda in Coppelia, The Chosen One in Douglas Martin’s Rite of Spring, Titania in Martin’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Doe/Duchess in Kirk Peterson’s Beauty and the Beast, as well as other works by Peterson, Martin, Gerald Arpino, José Limón, Mary Barton, and Septime Webre. Firer has received choreographic awards from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School and was chosen as one of five choreographers in Houston Ballet Academy’s collaboration with the American Festival for the Arts.