Mission
Mass Ballet offers excellent ballet and dance training with an emphasis on the joys of dance and developing the dancer as a whole person. Whether your goal is to dance professionally or to simply enjoy the joys of dance with great training, we offer a friendly, structured and stress-free environment for dancers of all ages and abilities. We nurture each dancer’s unique talents and help them become the dancer they want to be! Our dancers come from Framingham and the surrounding towns including Wayland, Weston, Wellesley, Ashland, Sherborn, Holliston, Hopkinton, Southborough, Sudbury, Lincoln, and Newton.
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Faculty
Meghan Powers
Ms. Powers is the founder and director of both Mass Ballet and Massachusetts Ballet Theatre. She began her dance training under the watchful eye of Richard Steinert and Christine Duhon, who are the Artistic Director and Ballet Mistress for Ballet Pensacola. After training at such schools as The Dance Lab, Joffrey Ballet School and Virginia School of the Arts, she joined them as a founding member of The Connecticut Contemporary Ballet Theatre (CCBT). She earned many performance and choreographic opportunities through this organization, such as Dracula, Peter and the Wolf and other nationally acclaimed original works throughout New England. In addition, Ms. Powers enjoyed several successful seasons on the artistic staff as both a teacher and rehearsal mistress for CCBT and Ballet Theatre Company prior to relocating to the Greater Boston Area. After relocating, Ms. Powers continued to be a sought after guest teacher, but was thrilled to join the faculty at The Ballet Space shortly after it opened its doors in 2005. After 5 successful years on staff and as co-director of The Ballet Space, Ms. Powers purchased the school from the owner/artistic director, Micheline Cacciatore, with the hope to continue The Ballet Space’s mission of “teaching the art and joy of dance.” She is thrilled to have the opportunity to continue to share her passion and experiences in this art form and to assist the dancer’s in reaching their goals both in and out of the school.
Maggie Crowley
Maggie Crowley holds a BFA in dance and a BS in political communication from Emerson College. She is certified in Progressing Ballet Technique and in levels pre-primary-5 of the American Ballet Theater National Training Curriculum. She has attended continuing education classes with Deborah Vogel (Optimal Performance Dance), Bruce Marks and Roni Mahler. Her choreography has been featured at Dixon Place (NYC), the Dance Complex (Cambridge), First Thursdays in Jamaica Plain, the Boston Children’s Dance Festival, the and Dances in Black and White at the Schubert Theatre. Maggie has worked as a guest teacher in the Cambridge Public Schools, United South End Settlement House, Dance Across the City, and and many studios in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. She received her early training in Vaganova technique at Valley Ballet in Collinsville, Connecticut.
Paige Hofschire
Paige Hofschire is a Mass Ballet alumni with a BA in public health and dance from American University. At American she had the opportunity to study and appear in multiple dance works by Britta Joy Peterson, Erin Foreman Murray, Marcia Howard, and Rosy Simas, as well as to choreograph two of her own works. She just finished up a year of working for Americorps NCCC, where she worked for multiple nonprofits in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, but is excited to be back in her home state and dance community in Massachusetts. The bulk of her training is in ballet, modern/contemporary, and dance improvisation, and she can’t wait to bring her interests and passions in dance and movement to Mass Ballet this year.
History
Mass Ballet was founded by Artistic Director Meghan Powers in 2010. Ms. Powers had been serving as Co-Artistic Director of “The Ballet Space,” in the Saxonville Mills. When the Owner/Co-Director of “The Ballet Space” wanted to relocate it was the perfect time for Ms. Powers to continue her vision and make it her own.
Mass Ballet approaches training dancers not unlike tending to growing a strong tree. If a dancer is trained well in the basics then we can branch off to teach them the many variations of training methods that exist in the dance world. We do not want our dancers to falsely believe that there is only one way to correctly execute a step, because it simply is not true. Rather, Mass Ballet fills them with knowledge and experiences, both on stage and in the classroom, so the dancers can grow and expand beyond our community.
Mass Ballet’s dancers are confident and versatile allowing them to succeed in any ballet class around the world. Mass Ballet alumni that have gone on to professional careers including with Nashville Ballet, Kentucky Ballet, Arch Contemporary, Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!, A Charlie Brown Christmas Live! and more. Others have continued to dance in higher education, including Columbia, Ailey/Fordham, Butler, University of Chicago, BU, BC, Boston Conservatory, Skidmore, The HARTT School, and The New School.
Ms. Powers and the Mass Ballet staff are well versed in Cecchetti, Vaganova, Royal Academy of Dance (RAD), ABT National Training Curriculum, Ballet Dynamics, Progressing Ballet Technique, Pilates–Stott and Balanced Body, Franklin Method, Leap ‘n’ Learn and more.) This extensive knowledge allows staff to meet dancers where they are at today and healthfully guide them towards their goals. Mass Ballet aims to be a home away from home for dancers to grow and flourish to new heights.