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Laura Smith Mauldin, born and raised in Thousand Oaks, California began figure skating at the age of four and dancing ballet at the age of six. During a thirteen-year competitive skating career which took Laura and her brother/partner all over the U.S. and to Europe for competitions, ballet became merely a side line for cross training and was eventually abandoned. But Laura returned to ballet at age eighteen, after retiring from her ice skating career, when she began attending Moorpark College, where her love of dance was

Tracy Jones trained under Colleen O’ Callahan, Alicia Head, and Diane Lauridsen at Lauridsen Ballet Centre. She has worked with such choreographers as Ron Cunningham, Robert Kelly, Daniel Baudendistel, Julie Shulman, Gina Patterson, and Stephen Mills. She has danced for South Bay Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, and in the trainee program of Ballet Austin. Tracy has worked as a guest artist for Riverside Ballet, San Pedro Ballet, and many others.  She has been in numerous premieres for KWDP and continues to be thrilled working with the company. Catch the

Gia Calhoun trained with Roberto Almaguer and Julia Ortega and also at California Dance Theatre under the direction of Kim Maselli, Stanley Holden, and Charles Maple. She attended summer programs at the Joffrey Ballet School, on scholarship, North Carolina School of the Arts, American Ballet Theatre, and Ballet Ostrava Workshop in the Czech Republic. Gia attended UC Irvine where she earned a B.A. in dance, and she completed a Pilates teacher training program with Diane Diefenderfer at Studio du Corps in Costa Mesa. She danced with Columbia

I’ve never felt like a part of the ballet world. I love ballet. I love watching ballet, I love working with ballet dancers, but I’ve never felt welcomed into the ballet world. I never danced for Disney, so I never felt like a part of the Orange County dance scene (but I did dance for Ballet Pacifica). I never enjoyed taking classes in Santa Monica (parking was never fun), so no one in that scene knew who I was. I came up too late to take with

One of my adult students asked what my favorite dance to perform was. I didn't have many starring roles in my career, but the first dance that came to mind was Con Amore. It's a dance by Lew Christensen, one of the founding fathers of ballet in the West. It's a silly dance about Amazons, thieves, and a wife with too many suitors. I was fortunate to play two roles in this dance, the Sailor and the Thief. I received many compliments as the Sailor. Someone even

Part II To Read Part 1 click here. From dancer to choreographer, the leap can be made when you seize opportunities, when you overcome your hesitations and when you access your own artistry and creativity. In the second of this 2-part interview series with Kenneth Walker, we learn that collaborations make a choreographer. So when did I feel like I was a professional choreographer?? Turns out

From dancer to choreographer, the leap can be made when you seize opportunities, when you overcome your hesitations and when you access your own artistry and creativity. In this 2-part series, we learn how Kenneth Walker emerged as a choreographer… Part I – An emerging choreographer. The running joke is that I started choreographing because I couldn't learn any of the steps in class, so I'd just make it up as I went along. That's only partially true. I would often blank out in petite allegro, even though I loved

Looking for an adult ballet class?  Mondays and Wednesdays  9:30am Intermediate Adult Ballet Peninsula School of Performing Arts, Lunada Bay Studio  2325 Palos Verdes Dr. West, Palos Verdes Estate Fridays open Adult Ballet Drop in class, $16, Professional Rate $13, Cash or Venmo10am San Pedro City Ballet, 1231 S Pacific Ave Looking for private lessons for your aspiring professional or need a brush up on your skill? All of the KWDP artists are available for private lessons. Contact us for more details, ken@kennethwalkerdanceproject.org

Marisa Johnston a board member for Kenneth Walker Dance Project recently sat down with Kenneth to ask about his start as a choreographer and the start of the company.  The result is this rare in-depth interview.   When you were young, were you surrounded by a family that embraced dance? Kenneth: I think I was inadvertently surrounded by art when I was young.  I come from a dancing family. They all danced at parties. Plus my aunts and uncles on my mom’s side were involved in local musical theater productions

Come to Dance Creations and enjoy a couple weeks of dance master classes with such notable teachers and choreographers: Wendi Baity, Ken Datugan, Beth Megill, Kenneth Walker II and more. Kenneth will be teaching ballet and creating new material at the Movement Theatre CoLab Summer Intensive in Simi Valley  June 26th and July 3.  Classes are open on a drop-in basis.  Contact us at ken@kennethwalkerdanceproject or Movement Theatre CoLab for more information.