Artistic Leadership
Faculty
Dimitri Aleman is a Los Angeles native who has been performing and training in the Southern California dance scene from a young age. He began his formal training at the Shakti School of Bharatanatyam and later expanded his studies to include ballet with City of Angels, Pacific Ballet Dance Theatre, and SoCal Arts. Dimitri continues to explore his passion for dance through jazz, contemporary, and hip hop, engaging in workshops, classes, and teaching. He is currently pursuing an AA in Child Development at Pasadena City College and plans to continue his education in Dance Science at Cal State Long Beach.
Arletta Anderson is a Los Angeles-based dance artist, performance maker, and educator, who has worked with a wide range of choreographers and directors, including Gerald Casel, Detour Dance, Summation Dance, and Aura Fischbeck. She was a collaborator and performer in Catherine Galasso’s Alone Together at ODC Theater in San Francisco, which was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance. She currently performs with DaEun Jung’s touring project NORRI and with choreographer Kevin Williamson.
Arletta also creates original performance work in collaboration with writer and theater artist Adam Smith. Their projects have been commissioned and presented nationally. As an educator, Arletta has taught at institutions including the University of San Francisco, Bowling Green State University, Scripps College, UCLA, LMU, UC Riverside, and the University of Hawaii, among others. Arletta holds a degree in Dance from LMU, and she is currently on faculty at Orange County School of the Arts, a member of the Ground Grooves teaching staff, and leads yoga and movement classes for both dancers and non-dancers.
Liza Barskaya began her dance training in Los Angeles and spent summers with American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, and Ballet Austin, where she performed as a Professional Division Trainee. She later danced in New York City with Dances Patrelle and American Swiss Ballet, and worked at Ballet Academy East. Her performance credits include LA Choreographers and Dancers, Benita Bike’s DanceArt Company, Ballet Austin, Martha Graham Dance Company, and The Assembly, along with media projects with John Tesh, Red Hot Organization, and My Big Fat Blonde Musical.
As a choreographer and director, Liza has created work for stage, video, and opera. In 2015, she was selected to create a performance piece for Upper Manhattan’s inaugural Higher Ground Festival, where she directed and choreographed an adaptation of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. Her choreography has been presented by Red Brick Road Theatre Company, Endeavor Theatre Ensemble, and Mesopotamian Opera Company, and has appeared in music videos for Emelia Austin. She is the resident stage director and choreographer for Independent Opera Company, where she has staged numerous rarely performed operas and original dance works. Liza teaches at Anna Cheselka Dance Center and is thrilled to be on faculty at Pasadena Dance Theatre.
Quron Clarks, originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, discovered his passion for dance in Los Angeles. He trained at the Lula Washington Dance Theatre School and graduated from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts in 2014. He went on to earn a BA from the Institute of the Arts Barcelona, performing with five professional companies and taking on commercial work during his studies. After graduating, Quron performed with Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Creative Studios before returning to LA to fulfill a dream of dancing with Lula Washington Dance Theatre, where he concluded his time in 2023 as a Principal Dancer. He continues to perform as a guest artist with Bernard Brown/BB Moves.
Now focused on teaching and choreography, Quron is a faculty member at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and regularly creates new work for schools across California, contributing meaningfully to the next generation of dancers.
Helga de Kansky received her basic training in New York from Mme. Anderson-Ivantzova, former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet. Throughout her career, she studied in Europe with Mmes. Preobrajenska, Nijinska, Volkova, Nora Hightower and John Taras. Helga was engaged by the Colonel de Basil Ballet Russe for seasons in London (Covent Garden) and Paris in 1947. She then joined the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, being named soloist after three years and remaining with the company for eight years. She worked with choreographers Massine, Nijinske, Dolin, Lichine, Balanchine, Taras and Dollar. Her roles included Queen of the Willis in Giselle (Perrot/Dolin), Taglioni and Grisi in Pas de Quatre (Perrot), the Prelude in Les Sylphides (Fokine) and prominent roles in Princess Aurora (Petipa), Sebastian (Caton), Petrouchka (Fokine), Jeux (Lichine), Dessins pour les Six (Taras). In 1956 Helga danced for a year with The Netherlands Ballet as a principal ballerina. She began teaching in Paris in 1957 and has been teaching in California since 1960, giving master classes for Dance in Action, Pasadena City College and Pasadena High School, and was an associate professor of dance at Cal State LA (1985/86). She founded Concert Ballet of California in 1981, for which she choreographed Designs (Czerny), Bach Concerto, Five Dances (Chopin), A Tale of Undines (Poulenc), A Celebration (Pachelbel) and Clouds (Halpin).
Noel Dilworth spent 10 years as a competitive rhythmic gymnast before transitioning to dance. She began her ballet training at Contra Costa Ballet in Northern California and continued her studies at Maryland Youth Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet School, The Alvin Ailey School/Fordham University, and North Carolina Dance Theatre, where she later joined the second company as a dancer. Noel has performed professionally with North Carolina Dance Theatre II, ARC Dance Seattle, San Diego Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Pasadena Dance Theatre. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from UC Irvine and was awarded second prize at the Mary Rich Peery Fife Dance Competition, hosted by the National Society for Arts and Letters in Washington, D.C. Noel also holds a 400-hour Pilates certification from Studio du Corps in Orange County.
Jean-Marie Martz holds a ballet master diploma from the Association Française des Maîtres de Danse Classique in Paris. During his 30-year career as a ballet instructor, he has taught at the Centre International de la Danse in Paris, Colorado Ballet in Denver, Idyllwild Arts Academy in California, University of California, Riverside, among others. After studying ballet in France at the Fédération Française de Danse Classique and in England at the Legat School of Russian Ballet, he performed in Germany with the Stuttgart Ballet and the Munich Ballet. He subsequently pursued his interest in modern dance in New York at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Merce Cunningham Studio, and studied dance kinesiology with Dorothy Vislocky. His studies in somatic movement modalities have included the Body-Mind Centering® certification program and the Feldenkrais® Method. Presently based in Los Angeles, Jean-Marie has conducted anatomy-based ballet pedagogy workshops internationally for organizations such as the Theatre School in Amsterdam, the Chichester Institute of Higher Education in England, the Royal Academy of Dance in Mexico City, the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York, and the European League of Institutes of the Arts. He has been a member of PDT's faculty since 2008.
Accompanists
Arletta Anderson is a Los Angeles-based dance artist, performance maker, and educator, who has worked with a wide range of choreographers and directors, including Gerald Casel, Detour Dance, Summation Dance, and Aura Fischbeck. She was a collaborator and performer in Catherine Galasso’s Alone Together at ODC Theater in San Francisco, which was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance. She currently performs with DaEun Jung’s touring project NORRI and with choreographer Kevin Williamson.
Arletta also creates original performance work in collaboration with writer and theater artist Adam Smith. Their projects have been commissioned and presented nationally. As an educator, Arletta has taught at institutions including the University of San Francisco, Bowling Green State University, Scripps College, UCLA, LMU, UC Riverside, and the University of Hawaii, among others. Arletta holds a degree in Dance from LMU, and she is currently on faculty at Orange County School of the Arts, a member of the Ground Grooves teaching staff, and leads yoga and movement classes for both dancers and non-dancers.
Liza Barskaya began her dance training in Los Angeles and spent summers with American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, and Ballet Austin, where she performed as a Professional Division Trainee. She later danced in New York City with Dances Patrelle and American Swiss Ballet, and worked at Ballet Academy East. Her performance credits include LA Choreographers and Dancers, Benita Bike’s DanceArt Company, Ballet Austin, Martha Graham Dance Company, and The Assembly, along with media projects with John Tesh, Red Hot Organization, and My Big Fat Blonde Musical.
As a choreographer and director, Liza has created work for stage, video, and opera. In 2015, she was selected to create a performance piece for Upper Manhattan’s inaugural Higher Ground Festival, where she directed and choreographed an adaptation of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. Her choreography has been presented by Red Brick Road Theatre Company, Endeavor Theatre Ensemble, and Mesopotamian Opera Company, and has appeared in music videos for Emelia Austin. She is the resident stage director and choreographer for Independent Opera Company, where she has staged numerous rarely performed operas and original dance works. Liza teaches at Anna Cheselka Dance Center and is thrilled to be on faculty at Pasadena Dance Theatre.