About The Ridgefield School of Dance

About The School

The Ridgefield School of Dance is located in beautiful downtown Ridgefield, Connecticut, a town voted #1 in the state, as compared with towns its size, for its wealth of cultural offerings. The school is one of the premier dance schools in the state noted for its professional environment and insistence on small class size.

The Ridgefield School of Dance is supported by a faculty of former professional dancers who have dedicated themselves to sharing the discipline and joy of their art with their students. Director Nancy Baldwin, herself a former performer and Director of three college dance departments, has built a program that serves both the pre-professional student and the recreational dancer.

The School offers a pre-professional program in ballet, with 7 graded levels in Classical Ballet and 3 in Pointe. Placements from Ballet 3 through Ballet 7 are by audition, or by permission of the Director and faculty, as are placements in the Pointe classes.

Advanced students have the opportunity to audition for and perform with The Ridgefield Dance Company, in either Ballet or Jazz disciplines or both.

The Jazz Program, under the direction of Wendy Perreault, is designed in the same manner, with carefully graded classes that address the levels of each student.

Modern Dance technique classes, based on the Graham and Limon technique, are offered at the beginning and intermediate level, and as supplemental classes to the intermediate and advanced ballet students. Modern Dance composition and Ballet Choreography Workshops are also offered.

Students at the School have many performance opportunities. The School is the only School in the state to present full-length classical ballets for the annual, year-end performance. Although the Company has been invited to perform excerpts of the ballets at The Ridgefield Playhouse, and other presentations with the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, all students are included in our spring performances. Ballets in our rotating repertoire include, Coppelia, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Les Sylphides. This year, the Ballet 6 & 7 will present Coppelia and the entire school will present Copplia the weekend of June 7th.

Our advanced students are taught original Bolshoi and Royal Ballet variations, pas-de-deux and solos to give them a learned repertoire of their own.

In December we also present our annual Nutcracker with Dr. Drosselmeyer’s Magic Dolls in which all students perform. Again, advanced students perform all of the complex choreography from “Land of the Sweets.” In 2006, Company dancers performed the Bolshoi verson of “Snow Forest” as well as the difficult solo “Sugar Plum Fairy”.

During the winter holiday season, our Ballet 7, Advanced Jazz and Company dancers perform excerpts from our holiday performances at Founder’s Hall and area Retirement Communities and Assisted Living Facilities.

We are also invited to perform at special venues and functions throughout the Ridgefield and Fairfield County community.

The Ridgefield School of Dance also offers a one, two or three week Summer Program with programs for 3-4 year olds, 5-7 year olds, and 8-13 year olds. This is a program for intermediate dancers giving them a chance to work on strengthening their technique. Please look at Summer Dance for more information.

A duet Our advanced students are encouraged to audition for well-known and prestigious summer programs throughout the country. Many have been accepted to Walnut Hill in Boston, Nutmeg Ballet in Torrington, CT, Steps Summer Program in New York City, The American Academy of Dance in Purchase, NY and the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Summer Dance around the country.

We are very proud that many of our students have been accepted to and are performing with the prestigious college dance programs at Tisch School at NYU, Purchase College, Purchase, NY and Marymount College in NYC.