User:Carole Alexis/sandbox

Carole Alexis, Director Carole Alexis is known throughout the world for her versatility, unique style and artistic approach to dance, choreography, teaching, and performing. As an honors graduate of the Mudra School created by Maurice Béjart, Léopold Sédard Senghor and UNESCO, Carole Alexis excelled in all varieties of dance. She has toured in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, dancing as a soloist, ensemble member and freelancer in many companies and productions including: Rick Odums Dance Company - Artistic Director: Rick Odums; Compagnie Du Corail, Soloist - Directors: Jean-Paul Césaire and Suzi Maniry; Les Ballets Jazz de Paris, Soloist - Artistic Director: Mervyn Francis; Moise Dance Company, Soloist - Artistic Director: Moise; Claire Tallia, Soloist - Artistic Director: Claire Tallia; Compagnie Irene Tassembedo.

Carole Alexis studied with: Maurice Béjart, ballet and choreographic intensives; Nikoloz Makhateli, ballet; Bertrand Pie, ballet; Jorge Lefèbre, Director of the Royal Ballet of Wallonie, ballet and choreographic work; Solange Golovine, ballet; Jaqueline Fyneart, barre au sol; Larrio Ekson, modern dance and choreographic intensives; Julien Jouga, music; Goris Théâtre; Doudou NDiaye Rose, percussion; Jacqueline Rayet, Opéra de Paris, ballet; Savitri Nair, Bharata Natyam; Rick Odums, jazz and modern jazz; Peter Goss, Modern Jose Limon based; Jay Allen Augen, ballet; Andrej Glekovski, ballet; Yuriko Kikuchi, Director of the Martha Graham Company; Bruce Taylor, modern dance, modern jazz and choreographic work; Jean-Claude Zadith, ballet, Barre au sol, modern dance and choreographic work; Nina Valery, ballet; Germaine Acogny, African dance and choreographic work; Ray Phillips, modern Graham technique; Jaqueline Scott Lemoine, theater; Jean-Claude Lamorandière, contemporary and Afro-Caribbean dance.

During her studies, Carole Alexis won numerous merit scholarships and the First Prize of Minolta Danse pour l’image. Her image has graced several magazine covers and she has been featured in many newspaper articles and magazines including the Encyclopédie de la Femme Antillaise. A documentary entitled Come Dance With Me, directed by Jean-Paul Césaire, portrays the early career of Carole Alexis when she was discovered by Aimé Césaire.

In 2011, Carole Alexis created Ballet des Amériques - a pre-professional ballet school and professional dance company - with the stated purpose of building an international performing arts center for the greater New York City area. Carole Alexis brings a lifetime of experience as an educator to the directorship at Ballet des Amériques. Her experience ranges from guest teaching specialized workshops and master classes throughout the United States and France, in Canada, Belgium, Martinique and other counties to teaching the curriculum at various public and private schools in Florida and in the greater New York City area. Along the way, she gained much official recognition for her work, including a special Proclamation by the Mayor of the City of Orlando.

Carole Alexis was co-director - with Doreen Santos - at the Bronx Dance Academy School, where she built such a successful program that virtually all of her students who applied to enter the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School Of Music & Art And Performing Arts and the Professional Performing Arts School were accepted by these renowned institutions. More recently, Carole Alexis was Associate Director and head of the Lower School at the Greenwich Ballet Academy, where she developed the Lower School and grew enrollment from some twenty to over eighty students. Some of her students went on to study at the Kirov Academy of Ballet, at the School of American Ballet and other academies. Known for her hand with children in building a solid classical dance foundation and instilling focus and discipline even in the very young, Carole Alexis combined her skills as a teacher with her creativity as a choreographer and experience as performing artist to produce full-length end-of-year productions - culminating in her original choreography, classical adaptation and staging of La cuillère sale ("The Dirty Spoon") in May 2011.

Carole Alexis established the School of Ballet des Amériques with the educational aim of preparing students for professional careers in dance through a carefully balanced and continually calibrated curriculum of anatomically informed ballet training combined with a broad education in the performing arts. Early successes include the annual June productions at the Emelin Theatre (Conversation with Degas in 2012 and Peter and the Wolf in 2013), choreographed by Carole Alexis and performed by the entire student body, as well as the preparation, audition and acceptance of several students to the summer programs at the Opéra de Paris in France and at the Royal Ballet School in the United Kingdom.