CLASSES + WORKSHOPS

Houston Dance Theatre presents Master Classes taught by Anna Marie Holmes and Paul Appleman.

A Summer Intensive Workshop for upper Intermendiate and Advanced Level Ballet dancers (ages 12-professional) to study with Internationally famous Anna Marie Holmes!

Lower Intermediate Level Ballet and Modern classes for ages 8+ will be conducted by Paul Appleman.

Anna-Marie Holmes is an internationally acclaimed dance luminary. Born in Canada, she trained with Heino Heiden, Lydia Karpova and Wynne Shaw; in London with Audrey de Vos and Errol Addison. In New York, she continued her ballet studies with Felia Doubrovska and trained in Leningrad with Natalia Dudinskaya, Alexander Pushkin and Alla Shelest of the Kirov Ballet.

Holmes was the first North American invited to perform with the Kirov Ballet in Russia. She has also appeared with the London Festival Ballet, Royal Scottish Ballet, Berlin Staats Oper, Het Nationale Ballet of Holland, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and others. Choreographers such as Brian MacDonald, Agnes de Mille, Ruth Page and Peter Darrell created works for her.

She joined Boston Ballet in 1985 and was named Artistic Director of the company in 1997 as well as Dean of Faculty for the Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education.

During her tenure with Boston Ballet, Holmes created new stagings of many ballets, including Giselle, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Her interpretations of the Russian classics are in the repertoires of leading ballet companies worldwide.

She is a recipient of the prestigious Dance Magazine Award and an Emmy Award for her staging of Le Corsaire for American Ballet Theatre's PBS Great Performances.

A native of Houston, Texas, Paul Appleman began training at Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson Academy. He danced with Houston Ballet in the corps de ballet and eventually became a first soloist. During his ballet education, Paul would train with Doug Varone, Garth Fagan, Jiri Kylian, Ohad Narhin and David Dorfman, whom he would later dance for.

Currently, he is the Artistic Director of Atlanta Dance Project, a professional modern dance company designed to develop the art of movement for the community.