About Us:

Ballet Arts School of Dance was founded in 1962 and has developed a reputation for excellence in teaching in classical ballet, jazz and tap. Over the decades of its existence, Ballet Arts has maintained a commitment to bring quality dance education to residents of the Conejo Valley. Since the emphasis at Ballet Arts is dance as a performing art it is essential that Ballet Arts students have an opportunity to perform on stage - thus, Conejo Civic Ballet Company (CCBC) was formed. Through the years CCBC has staged many dance productions and they have become increasingly popular. Many tickets are sold to individuals who have no connection with Ballet Arts or CCBC. This is particularly impressive because Ballet Arts does not require it's students to buy tickets to the performances; all ticket sales are fully voluntary. To learn more about CCBC follow the link in the sidebar and check out the multi media material under the Performances tab at the top of the page.

Our core dance program is ballet. It is a highly structured form of dance and very demanding. But we also offer classes in contemporary dance, character dance and tap that have become very popular. We find that people of all ages want to learn dance. Some of our programs are designed for very young dancers taught by instructors that understand the very young. We have other programs that cater to adults who want to come back to dance after an absence or want to learn some form of dance for the first time. There are pre-teens and teens who want to start ballet but have not had prior training and we find that often they can catch up by participating in the adult classes then move to some of our core ballet classes after they have acquired basic dance skills. There are also those who enjoy dance as part of their recreation and fitness program. They find that Ballet Arts has plenty of dance programs to choose from and has classes filled with friendly people eager to have them join.

One of the things Ballet Arts does not offer is support for dance competitions for our ballet students. Ballet is a performing art (and has been for some time); there is no need to turn it into a competitive sport. Not much is gained by sports-like dance competitions and much is usually lost (by the student, not the dance competition promoters who find the business quite profitable). Our core ballet programs remain focussed on stage productions in which many of our students participate. It requires a lot more resources to stage a dance production (just finding an inspired choreographer is tough enough) so it is no wonder that dance studio owners promote more lucrative alternatives. However, despite more profitable alternatives, Ballet Arts will continue its focus on dance as artist expression