Faculty & Admin.

About The Faculty

Nancy Comstock Baldwin,
Director /Choreographer

Nancy Baldwin, Director of the School, teaches all levels of Classical Ballet and Pointe from PreBallet through Ballet 7. As Artistic Director, she choreographs the majority of the ballet presentations for The Nutcracker and Spring Productions.

Ms. Baldwin holds a B.A. in Dance from Bennington College and an M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University where her graduate thesis explored the use of dance and arts for special needs children and adults.

Growing up in Norwalk, CT, Ms. Baldwin studied ballet from the age of 4 with Claire Deefield and Russell Fratto and spent summers from ages 12 to 18 on Scholarship studying in the professional class at The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo School in NYC.

Her teachers included Maria Swoboda, Leon Danielion, Anatole Vilzak and Casimir Kokitch.

Instead of pursuing a performance career opportunity with a ballet company in Sweden, she chose to attend Bennington College, where she focused on Modern Dance Performance and Composition. The College awarded her scholarships to study at The Martha Graham School in NYC and The American Dance Festival, where she performed with the Doris Humphrey Repertory Group.

At Bennington, Ms. Baldwin studied and performed with many pioneer modern dancers, including Bill Bales, Donald McKayle, Ruth Currier, Jose Limon, Lucas Hoving and Merce Cunningham. She then performed in NYC with the modern companies of Jack Moore, Jeff Duncan, Valerie Bettis and Anna Sokolow.

Her performing career was followed by a career in college teaching; including Director of the Dance Programs at Skidmore College, Montclair State University, Keuka Collge, Wells College, and Eastern Connecticut State University where she served as Assistant Professor on their faculties. As Director of the Skidmore College Dance Program, Ms. Baldwin was instrumental in forging a connection between the College and the NYC Ballet, newly in residence at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC).

While teaching during the school year, she performed in many summer stock companies including the Spa Summer Theatre in Saratoga Springs.

Married and raising a family in Lebanon, CT (near Storrs) she began her own School of Dance which she directed for over 15 years. She moved to Ridgefield in 1995 and opened The Ridgefield School of Dance in 1997.

In the Ridgefield community, Nancy has contributed her skills to choreographing productions for The Ridgefield Theatre Barn and teaching classes for Special Needs Children. She has served for five years as Chairman of The Ridgefield Arts Council. Statewide, she is a member of the Advisory Board of The Connecticut Dance Alliance.

Larissa Akinicheva teaches upper level Ballet, Pointe and Company classes.

Ms. Akinicheva was a soloist in the Tchaikovsky Ballet Company, one of Russia’s most distinguished artistic companies. A native of Russia, Ms. Akinicheva studied at the Perm Academic State School of Choreography and graduated from the State Academic Theater of Russian Opera and Ballet in Ekaterinaburg, Russia. She also was a soloist with the State Academic Theater of Russian Opera and Ballet Company in Perm. Ms. Akinicheva toured extensively throughout Europe with The Tchaikovsky Ballet Company and in the Far East with The Ballet of Russia Theatre. As a soloist, she performed in Swan Lake, Giselle, Bayadere, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote Paquita, Les Sylphides, Romeo & Juliet, Cinderella among others .

Ms. Akinicheva has taught ballet both in the United States and in her native Russia where she was a teacher at the Young People’s School of the Performing Arts. She taught ballet for Patricia Shuster in Ridgefield for eight years. In addition to teaching at The Ridgefield School of Dance, Ms. Akinicheva teaches ballet at the BBT/School of Russian Ballet, the Connecticut Ballet Center in Stamford and The Milford Performing Arts Center.

Jessica Boelts joins The Ridgefield School of Dance from Ballet Austin, Austin, Texas where she both taught at the Academy and performed with the Company.

Under the direction of Ballet Austin Master Teacher Truman Finney, Jessica was a principal in Balanchine’s Valse Fantasy and has also performed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Giselle, Peter Pan, Who Cares?, Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker. Jessica has also danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Massachusetts Youth Ballet.

This year Jessica is teaching Ballet to all age groups as well as Pointe II and Pointe III classes.

Sarah Roberts teaches lower school Children's Ballet classes and Modern Dance

Sarah began dancing with Nancy Baldwin at the Lebanon School of Dance with 1990. In 2002, Sarah followed Ms. Baldwin to her Ridgefield School and continued her training and dancing as a member of the Ridgefield Dance Company. Ms. Roberts participated in dance workshops at the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival and with the HARTT School of Dance throughout high school. In 2005, she choreographed Opera Dido and Aeneas for The University of Connecticut Opera Theatre.

Sarah will graduate from Central Connecticut State University in May, 2008. Dancentral, the performance company at Central, has provided many chances for her to work with nationally known choreographers and artists such as Hubbard Street, Jamaican Dance Troupe, Paul Dennis of the Limon Company, and the dancers from Broadway's The Lion King.

Ms. Roberts graduated from CCSU as a Physical Education and Human Performance Major and dance minor with an emphasis on the new Dance Teacher Certification. She is also the president of Dancentral and a member of the Connecticut Dance Alliance.

Wendy Perreault: Director, Jazz Department teaches all levels of Jazz

With the belief that dance reinforces a sense of pride, enthusiasm and self-confidence, Wendy Perreault has been the driving force behind The Ridgefield School of Dance Jazz Department since 2002.

She has taught dance in the Ridgefield area since 1993 and has also taught at four studios throughout Rhode Island. Her career in dance includes dancing at the Tisch School/NYU and the Broadway Dance Center. For four years, Ms. Perreault was a soloist for the Central Connecticut Ballet Company.

Immediately prior to joining The Ridgefield School of Dance, Ms. Perreault taught at and became director of the Patricia Shuster School of Dance.

Alison Brown
Business Manager

Alison Brown has always enjoyed the business side of entertainment working with the creative team and clients to ensure smooth operations.

One of the founders of Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age, Robots), Ms. Brown served as head of commercial production and vice president of sales and marketing. During her tenure at Blue Sky she helped to build a world-class character animation and effects team, producing over 150 commercials for advertising agencies. Many of these projects were ground breaking in the field of CG character animation and received top honors at international awards festivals. At Blue Sky, Brown also served as executive producer for the computer animation portion of the first feature film with CG bugs "Joe’s Apartment." With a cast of singing and dancing cockroaches, "Joe’s Apartment" swept international animation competitions, receiving top honors at the World Animation Celebration, Imagina, Art Futura (Madrid), Images du Futur (Montreal) and the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Ms. Brown also served as executive producer for the New York division of Kleiser-Walczak, an animation and visual effects studio located in the Berkshires and Los Angeles.