Katy Ellison
Katy Ellison is a Bryan native. She received her most of her early ballet training in Houston and was a member of Houston Dance Theatre, a pre-professional ballet company. As a teenager, Ms. Ellison received numerous scholarships to spend her summers studying with Pennsylvania Ballet, Ballet Austin, Joffrey Ballet, The International Ballet School in Jackson, and the Choreographer’s Conference.
At the age of 17, after spending her third summer studying with Pennsylvania Ballet, she was invited to move to Philadelphia and continue her studies on full scholarship. Over the next four years, she continued her training with Gloria Govrin, Sandra Jennings, Jeffrey Gribler and many other world-renowned dancers and teachers, and performed professionally with Pennsylvania Ballet in many traditional, contemporary, and Balanchine ballets. These include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Giselle, The Four Temperaments, Serenade, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Western Symphony and others.
In 2000, Ms. Ellison returned to Texas and continued to perform as a professional guest artist with Sandra Organ Dance Company, Houston Dance Theatre, and Kingwood Dance Theatre. She also began teaching classical ballet, pointe, and variations in the Houston area and discovered a great passion for passing along her knowledge of classical ballet to the next generation of dancers.
Ms. Ellison has been teaching pre-professional dancers for over fifteen years. She has served on the teaching staff at American Academy of Dance in Houston, TX, and Rowland’s School of Ballet in Kingwood, TX. She also served as rehearsal assistant for Kingwood Dance Theatre, and Director of Kingwood Youth Ballet, which she co-founded in 2002. She has been responsible for assisting with annual staging of full-length ballets such as The Nutcracker, and Alice in Wonderland, as well as dozens of new works each year. Her students have gone on to professional careers with Houston Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Colorado Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Hispanico, Oklahoma City Ballet, and numerous contemporary dance companies, Others students have been selected to continue their ballet studies in prestigious dance programs at Juilliard, SUNY Purchase, University of Oklahoma, and University of South Carolina, among others. Currently, she serves on the teaching staff at Suzanne’s School of Dance in College Station, and is the Artistic Advisor for Ballet Brazos.
In addition to teaching the next generation of dancers, Mrs. Ellison enjoys a career in choreography. Her ballets have been commissioned and performed all over the southwest, and have been featured at numerous Regional Dance America gala performances.
