history & mission
Company History | Members of the Board of Directors | Message from the President
Company History
After being a dance educator for many years, I have learned the importance of teaching dance culture and tradition to young dancers. We live in a great community, many of us moved here because it has the same feel of the neighborhoods of where we grew up, strong families, safe neighborhoods and good schools. The down side of living in a small community is aspiring dancers do not have many opportunities to audition and perform locally, two skills that are integral to a dancer's education. My vision is to bring all the dancers in the community together regardless of where they dance, who they compete with or what their experience is. This is a community based company, open to every dancer, every level. It is an opportunity for dancers to audition for and perform with a professional style company. Dancers will experience the culture of dance while bringing a dance tradition, The Nutcracker, to our community.
That was my vision in 2005, the first year of the Brentwood Children's Ballet Theater. Now, we have experienced some changes. We still have the same goals, just on a larger scale. The Ballet Theater is now a non-profit corporation. We have a Board of Directors made up of incredible people of different expertise and backgrounds making decisions together. Our choreographers have grown and our cast has grown to nearly 70 cast members with representatives from 4 different dance studios. The Brentwood Children's Ballet Theater has a bright future ahead...it gets better every year!
Nina Koch
CEO
Members of the Board of Directors
President, Artistic Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Stephanie Knudson |
| CEO, House Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Nina Koch |
CFO, Prop Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Janell Gruner |
Secretary, Parent Liaison . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Tammy Reyes |
| Board Member, Fundraising Director . . . . . |
Nini Westlake |
Board Member, Marketing Director . . . . . . |
Jennifer Barcus |
Board Member, Costume Director . . . . . . . |
Davi Lee Fredrickson |
Board Member, Head Costumer . . . . . . . . |
Julie Sherdel |
| Board Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Lynn Pisano |
Board Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Donna Foster |
Board Advisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
Kathryn Lopez |
Message From the President
Welcome to the third annual Brentwood Children’s Ballet Theater presentation of “The Nutcracker.” I am Stephanie Knudson, the President of the board of Directors and I wanted to personally welcome you and thank you for coming. Although this is our third annual, this is a brand new show and I will tell you why.
This production is designed around bringing opportunity for children of all talents and ages to do a professional show that is designed to entertain children of all talents and ages. That talent includes my father who I give the opportunity to build professional sets for me, did I say thanks Dad? As with the other years, we have added new parts, new costumes, new scenery and of course several bright new dancers to make this year’s production even better than before. Our dancers range from pre-professional hopefuls all the way down to those little ones who saw the show last year and could not wait to be a part of it (that says so much doesn’t it?). All these dancers come with great parents who have made the sacrifice after sacrifice. Their talents are recognized and appreciated especially at 8:30 on Saturday mornings.
We have increased to well over 60 dancers and therefore our staff has increased also. Three new choreographers have joined us to add their own flavor to our already remarkable team, Gwen Stone and Nina Koch from East County Performing Arts Center and from our neighboring dance studio Fabulous Feet, Kim Karbowski. All of them have given their time and their very special talents to make this years production a great one.
Every year our goal is to make this production better and different enough from the year before so that our return viewers will be seeing it for the first time. This is not an easy task. The choreography is different every year. That is because the dancers change rolls every year. I am constantly amazed at how flexible and willing the children are with changes (I have a tendency to change my mind a little.) We have to therefore change the costumes every year to fit the dancers. Some carry over but our costume crew starts from almost scratch every year. Have you counted the costumes? I definitely owe them manicures for Christmas. The sets have to be updated because you certainly cannot have new costumes without new sets. The longer we do the show the more creative ideas we seem to come up with and our scenery director has never said anything to me but “sure, I can do that.” Doing the exact same show every year would make it easier on all of us but certainly not as much fun.
This years’ Nutcracker adventure has been a fast one. I have enjoyed spending the time with all the dancers and watching the show unfold into what you will be seeing today. Everyone involved with this program has worked so hard and I know that you will see that hard work in the performance.
With that said, come now and follow Clara and her beautiful imagination into her dreamland where snowflakes dance, candy spins and twirls and dolls really do come to life. Welcome to The Brentwood Children’s Ballet Theater presentation of “The Nutcracker.”
Stephanie Knudson
President of the Brentwood Children's Ballet Theater
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