Founder
Anthony Williams
Founder and Artistic Director
Anthony Williams, Founder/Artistic Director of BalletRox, was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. Mr. Williams remembers how his early exposure to dance opened up a treasure of self expression that was hidden to him. Read more...
Staff
Ilanga
Artistic Advisor
Director of Scholarship and Outreach
Board of Directors
Master Teachers
Tai Jiminez
Tai Jimenez, a native of New York City, began her dance training with Joan Millen Mesh and went on to study at the School of American Ballet, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Laguardia High School, with Madame Gabriella Darvash and Ken Ludden. She was a member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem School Ensemble before joining DTH, where she became a Principal Dancer. Her repertory included the title roles of Giselle and Firebird as well as numerous works by George Balanchine, and ballets by Glen Tetley, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Sir Frederick Ashton, Bronislava Nijinska, August Bournonville, Agnes de Mille, Alvin Ailey, Alonzo King, Robert Garland, John Alleyne, Lar Lubovitch, Doug Varone, Dwight Rhoden and others. Later, Ms. Jimenez joined Boston Ballet as a Principal. There she originated a role in Mark Morris' Up and Down, and was also seen in Val Caniparoli’s Lambarena, Jorma Elo’s Carmen, Balanchine's Serenade and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nijinska's Les Nocesand Asaf Messerer's Spring Waters. She has appeared as a guest artist with the New York City Ballet and companies across the United States. She made her Broadway debut as Ivy Smith (Miss Turnstiles) in the 1998 revival of On the Town, directed by George C. Wolfe. Ms. Jimenez originated the roles of Fran in Maria Irene Fornes’ Letters from Cuba and Ysabel in Debbie Allen's Soul Possessed. She was a featured dancer on the Academy Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors and in pop superstar Prince’s Rave Unto the Year 2000. Ms. Jimenez played the role of Mela in the film One Last Dance starring Patrick Swayze. The versatile Jimenez is also a teacher and choreographer. She was a choreographic assistant in the feature film The Game Plan, starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. She currently teaches at Harvard University, the Boston Conservatory, the Boston Arts Academy, BalletRox, Boston Ballet Summer Intensive and Moving People Dance Santa Fe Summer Intensive. She has been featured on the cover of Pointe magazine, in Dance Teacher Magazine, and her writing has appeared in both Pointe and Dance Magazine. She writes a blog about dance, art and spirituality. Visit her at her website.
Anthony Williams
Founder/Artistic Director of BalletRox, was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.
Mr. Williams remembers how his early exposure to dance opened up a treasure of self expression that was hidden to him. Ballet gave him the confidence to take on the challenge of an exciting new career; while offering him the necessary tools to make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. At age 16, after experiencing trouble as a street gang member, he discovered a pathway to international success through ballet. His strong athletic abilities in track, baseball and gymnastics accelerated his dance training. Mr.Williams began his early training with the Lithuanian ballerina, Tatiana Babuskina. Afterwards, Mr. Williams received a scholarship from the Boston School of Ballet, training with E. Virginia Williams (founder of the Boston Ballet) and Sydney Leonard. Along with Mr. Williams’ first teachers, he also attributes his success to Sam Kurkjian, Hector Zaraspe, Perry Brunson and Frank Bourman.
Mr. Williams also owes a great debt to Arnold Spohr, former long-time Artistic Director of Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Robert Joffrey, founder of the Joffrey Ballet. These men offered invaluable artistic direction which Mr. Williams is totally committed to passing on to future generations of dancers. Mr. Williams joined the Boston Ballet in 1964 and after dancing for only three years, Mr. Williams worked his way up from Corps-de-Ballet to Principal Dancer. He then danced soloist roles with the Joffrey Ballet and was a Principal Dancer with Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Gulbenkian Ballet of Portugal, and the Norwegian National Ballet.
Mr. Williams has been teaching in the New England area for thirty years. With this background and as a father of three sons, Mr. Williams is very sensitive to the needs of youths.
Gianni DiMarco
A native of Venezuela, began his dance training in 1981, in the Professional Division of the Royal
Winnipeg Ballet School in Canada. He has also studied with The National Ballet of Canada, the Ballet Nacional de Cuba and in Banff. He joined Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1988, and was promoted to second soloist in 1990 and then first soloist the following year. He joined Boston Ballet in 1995, retiring in 2005. Di Marco has also danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Germany’s Opera Leipzig Ballet. Providence audiences have been delighted by his guest appearances with Festival Ballet Providence, including Gamache in Don Quixote and the King in The Princess and the Pea. He has created a number of works for a variety of institutions throughout the region, including many Boston Ballet fundraising galas, Dance on the Top Floor and Raw Dance. Di Marco’s short works Killing
Time, Amphibious Love and Gracias a La Vida
have been performed for Festival Ballet
Providence’s Up CLOSE, on HOPE series. His
previous commissions by Festival Ballet
Providence include Schéhérazade (2005), Azucar
(2006) and El Amor Brujo (2007). In 2005, Di
Marco was named Principal of CityDance,
Boston Ballet’s outreach program which affects
over 3,000 Boston public school children a
year, and also teaches at the Boston
Conser vator y and Boston Ballet Adaptive
Dance Program, created for children with
Downs Syndrome. He has recently started a
new program for children with autism.
Company Dancers
Rachel Burke
Rachel trained at Jose Mateo's Ballet Theater during her high school years. She was a featured soloist in many of the company's original works. Rachel has also studied at the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet and Alonzo King's Lines Ballet. She received her BFA in Dance from the Boston Conservatory under the Couper Scholarship. Since then, Rachel has danced with Contropose Dance and David Drummond. Rachel has performed in Tony Williams' Urban Nutcracker in the past and is exciting to be joining the Ballet Rox company again.
Caroline Cohn
Caroline Cohn was born in Providence, Rhode Island. She danced for eight years with the State Ballet of Rhode Island, artistic director Herci Marsden, two years as a Principal dancer. She received a B.F.A in Dance from University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she was a recipient of the Chancellor's Talent Award. Caroline taught ballet and performed for the Five College Dance Department and the Pioneer Valley Ballet. This is Caroline's third season performing with BalletRox in the Urban Nutcracker, and has danced many roles including Sugar Plum, Snow Queen, and Rox Riff. Other past favorite roles include Queen Myrtha from Giselle, a soloist role in Balanchine's Concerto Barocco, and Bluebird from Sleeping Beauty. In addition to dancing, Caroline also teaches dance in the Boston Public Schools, and at the Kathy McCrohon Dance Center in Wellesley.
Janelle Gilchrist
Janelle is from Stoneham, MA and trained at Harriet Hoctor Ballet School, Boston Ballet, Broadway Theater Project, Concord Academy, Dance Theater of Harlem, and received her BFA in dance from the University of Hartford. Ms. Gilchrist danced professionally with Hartford Ballet, New Jersey Ballet, Legends in Concert, Neil Young, Celebrity Cruises, Anna Myer, David Parker, and Island Moving Company. Ms Gilchrist is currently dance company manager and a professional dancer for BalletRox. BalletRox produces many shows during the year including the Urban Nutcracker where she performs various roles including the Sugar Plum Fairy. Ms Gilchrist also teaches dance in the Boston Public Schools through BalletRox. When she has time, she enjoys choreographing for various shows in the Boston area.
Li-Ann Lim began her dance training at the Lexington School of Ballet and continued her dance studies at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York City. In 2004, she joined Chen and Dancers. She later moved to California and received an MFA in dance at the University of California, Irvine. While in California, Li-Ann served as adjunct faculty at Fullerton College and Scripps College and continued performing, appearing with the Ziggurat Theatre Ensemble and Rosanna Gamson/World Wide. Since returning to the Boston area in 2009, she has continued to teach ballet and modern dance. She currently dances with Ballet Rox, Lorraine Chapman The Company, Dance Currents and Contrapose.
Rick Vigo
Rick Vigo started dancing while attending Emory University as a theatre major. He went on to study at FSU, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, the Martha Graham School for Contemporary Dance and at various other studios in NYC and Boston. Rick has worked with H.T. Chen and Dancers, Anna Myer, the Island Moving Company, Lorraine Chapman, Jose Mateo, Hershey Park, Donn Arden's Jubilee! and many others. He enjoys teaching, choreographing and most importantly, cultivating his skills as a performer.
Company continued...
Olga Marchenko
Olga is originally from Russia where she began her dancing education at the age of nine. Taught the Vaganova method, she acquired the best academic traditions of classical Russian ballet. After graduating from Saratov Ballet Academy, she joined her hometown ballet theater. The roles included: Pasdede in Gizelle, little swans in Swan Lake, Jewels in Sleeping Beauty. Three years later Olga joined the Moscow City Ballet of Smirnov Golovanov with which she toured the world for four years, performing as a corpsÂde ballet and soloist dancer. In 2008 Olga joined BalletRox of Tony Williams. Among her roles in the Urban Nutcracker are Snow Queen, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese dance. Other performances that Olga has enjoyed to be a part of are Ben's Trumpet, Peter and the Wolf, and La Favorita.
Ksusha Melyuhina
A native of Berezniki, Russia, Ms. Ksusha Melyukhina began her first formal training at the Berizniki Ballet School when she was 4 years old. She continued her ballet studies in Berizniki, where she studied classical ballet and Russian Character Dance Techniques with Svetlana Pronina. Her repertoire with Berezniki Ballet included Kitri in Don Quixote, Masha in Nutcracker, small swans in Swan Lake, leading roles in Coppelia and Creation of the World among others.Upon graduation from Berezniki Ballet School in 2004 Ms. Melyukhina joined Theatre Evgenij-Panfilov Ballet, a modern dance company where she studied modern dance with Rajnik Sergei. Since 2005 she has been a principal dancer in the company.2009 ms. Melyukhina has graduated from the Perm State Technical University, majoring Geman and English linguistic.Ms. Melyukhina currently resides in Boston and performs with Ballet Rox for the past two years.
Elizabeth Mochizuki
Elizabeth grew up in California where she studied ballet with Diane Mosier. Ms. Mochizuki danced with the Festival Ballet of Rhode Island and Jose Mateo's Ballet Theatre while attending Tufts University. She graduated from Tufts in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies. Ms. Mochizuki has since performed with many Boston-area dance companies including BalletRox, Boston Dance Company, Spindle City Ballet, and Anna Myer and Dancers. From 2008-2010 she was a Principal Dancer with the Ithaca Ballet (Ithaca, NY), performing such roles as Snow White, Cinderella, Raymonda, and Giselle. In addition to performing, Ms. Mochizuki also teaches dance to students all over the city of Boston. This is her sixth season with BalletRox.
Lucy Warren-Whitman
Lucy Warren-Whitman started her early training with her parents Rachel Whitman and Skip Warren. She went on to study with Larissa Luvischuk in the Vagonova method. She was awarded a full scholarship to Walnut Hill where she had the pleasure of studying with Sydelle Gomberg and Samuel Kurkijan. She has since been a free-lance artist dancing and choreographing for companies in the New England area such as Contrapose Dance, Pioneer Valley Ballet, Spindle City Ballet and Boston Dance Company. She also teaches and coaches ballet in the area. She is enjoying her first season with BalletRox.