(Thursday, June 13, 2024, Los Angeles) – The Colburn School is pleased to announce that Janie Taylor, a noted dancer, teacher, choreographer, and member of L.A. Dance Project, has been named Artistic Director of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute (TZDI) for the 2024-25 school year. She will partner with longtime TZDI staff member Gavin Kelley, who will serve as Interim Administrative Director. Janie Taylor joins the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute following the departure of Dean Margaret Tracey, who left Colburn at the beginning of the month to take the role of Artistic Director of Canada’s National Ballet School.
Janie Taylor has been affiliated with Colburn since 2016, both as a faculty member and a visiting artist. She recently choreographed Contour and Flight for the Dance Academy, a rigorous pre-professional ballet training program, which received its world premiere at Colburn’s Winter Dance Celebration in December 2023. She is a rehearsal director for L.A. Dance Project, where she also danced from 2016 to 2021. A former member of New York City Ballet’s corps de ballet, Janie was promoted to soloist in 2001 and principal dancer in 2005. During her career with NYCB she originated roles in ballets choreographed by Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, and Justin Peck, and performed featured roles in numerous ballets by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, as well as pieces by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Christopher Wheeldon, Susan Stroman, Twyla Tharp, and Miriam Mahdaviani. Upon retiring from the New York City Ballet in 2014, Janie began working as a répétiteur setting works for Justin Peck and Benjamin Millepied at the Paris Opera Ballet and also started a career in costume design. She has set works for Miami City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Ballett Dortmund, and Ballet du Rhin, and her designs can be seen at the New York City Ballet, and L.A. Dance Project.
As Artistic Director of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute during the 2024-25 school year, Janie will shape the artistic and educational direction of Colburn School’s dance program, overseeing curriculum development, faculty recruitment, and student recruitment. With her multifaceted professional experience, she will foster a dynamic learning environment, promote artistic innovation, and cultivate the next generation of dance professionals at the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute.
“We are excited to welcome Janie Taylor as Artistic Director as she continues and expands her exceptional work with our students,” said President Sel Kardan. “Her decade-long commitment to dance in LA and breadth of artistic experience made her a natural fit for this position. She joins our distinguished artistic and administrative team, including faculty chairs Kelly Ann Sloan, Denise Scheerer, and Tamsin Carlson, ensuring strong ongoing leadership for the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute.”
As Interim Administrative Director, Gavin Kelley will partner with Janie Taylor, providing vital support to the dance program. He will play a key role in ensuring the smooth and efficient functioning of all administrative and logistical aspects of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, liaise with faculty, staff, students, and parents, and coordinate events, performances, and initiatives. As a Colburn staff member for over 11 years, Gavin possesses a deep knowledge of the Colburn School and a commitment to the School’s mission of providing access to excellence in the performing arts.
About Janie Taylor
Janie Taylor was born in Houston, TX where she began her ballet training at age two with Gilbert Rome. She trained at the Giacobbe Academy of Dance in New Orleans from 1993–1996. After attending two years of the summer program at the School of American Ballet, she became a full-time student in the fall of 1996. While a student at SAB, she originated a featured role in Christopher Wheeldon’s Soirée Musicale for the spring workshop performance in June of 1998. She received the Mae L. Wien Award at the SAB Annual Workshop and was invited to become an apprentice with New York City Ballet. A month later, she became a member of NYCB’s corps de ballet. She was promoted to the rank of Soloist in February 2001 and to Principal Dancer in 2005. During her career with New York City Ballet she originated roles in ballets choreographed by Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, and Justin Peck. She also performed featured roles in numerous ballets by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, as well as pieces by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Christopher Wheeldon, Susan Stroman, Twyla Tharp, and Miriam Mahdaviani. Ms. Taylor appeared in the film Center Stage directed by Nicholas Hytner which was released in 2000. She retired from the New York City Ballet on March 1, 2014 and began working as a répétiteur setting works for Justin Peck and Benjamin Millepied, and also started a career in costume design. Her designs can be seen at the New York City Ballet, and L.A. Dance Project. From 2014 -2016, Ms. Taylor relocated to Paris, France where she assisted Millepied with his new works at the Paris Opera Ballet. During this time, she also set works for Miami City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Ballett Dortmund, and Ballet du Rhin. She assisted Christopher Wheeldon with his work as Artistic Director for the Fashion Forward exhibition in Paris at Musee des Arts Decoratif. Upon returning to the states in 2016, Ms. Taylor began teaching at the Colburn School in Los Angeles on faculty, and as a guest. She joined L.A. Dance Project as a dancer, dancing with the company through 2021. She is currently a rehearsal director for L.A. Dance Project. At the suggestion of Millepied, Ms. Taylor ventured into the world of choreography creating her first piece, Adagio in B Minor, in 2019 for L.A. Dance Project. She now has 4 works in the LADP repertoire.
About Gavin Kelley
Gavin Kelley is a native of Altoona, PA, but grew up in Hiroshima, Japan where he attended Japanese and international schools, before moving to China and then back to the United States. Gavin began his career in the arts nonprofit sector in Los Angeles in 2005 as a Program Associate and Grants Manager for the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) under the mentorship of Hirokazu Kosaka. Gavin’s international background also created opportunities at the Rafu Shimpo newspaper, the Japan Foundation, the World Festival of Sacred Music, and The Getty Center. Prior to joining the Colburn School in 2012, he worked at the ReDiscover Center as the Grants and Programs Manager and was The Getty Center’s Multicultural Visual Arts Internship Hub Manager for the Downtown Los Angeles area in 2011 and 2012. During his tenure at the Colburn School’s Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, he assisted the inaugural Artistic Director Leslie Carothers-Aromaa and former Deans Bob McAllister, Jenifer Ringer, Silas Farley, and Margaret Tracey, working in close tandem with Dance Chairs Tamsin Carlson, Denise Scheerer, and Kelly Ann Sloan to expand the dance curriculum, class offerings, and recruitment. He was instrumental in the introduction of sequential learning and helped revamp the business practices of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute. Additionally, Gavin supported Jenifer Ringer and James Fayette in the launching of the Colburn Dance Academy which just completed its first decade as a pre-professional training program.
About the Colburn School
A performing arts institution located in the heart of Los Angeles, the Colburn School trains students from beginners to those about to embark on professional careers. The academic units of the School provide a complete spectrum of music and dance education united by a single philosophy: that all who desire to study music or dance should have access to top-level instruction.
Each year, more than 2,000 students from around the world come to Colburn to benefit from the renowned faculty, exceptional facilities, and focus on excellence that unites the community.
The Colburn Center, designed by Frank Gehry, is a multi-faceted campus expansion of the Colburn School. Located across the street from the School’s existing campus at the intersection of Olive and Second Streets, the Colburn Center will enable the School to expand its mission of presenting programs for the public. Gehry’s design includes a 1,000-seat in-the-round concert hall named Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall, five professional-sized dance studios including a 100-seat studio theater, and gardens that bring fresh air and green spaces to the downtown landscape. The Colburn School broke ground on the Colburn Center on April 5, 2024. The completed project will join Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and The Grand complex to create the largest concentration of buildings designed by the architect in the world.
The dance spaces housing the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute will create the most comprehensive dance education complex in Downtown Los Angeles. Transparent walls of five oversized dance studios on the corner of 2nd and Hill streets provide a window into the beauty and hard work of dance training. The studio theater—the largest dance studio in the School—will be equipped to be used as a professional-level performance venue as well as a rehearsal studio. Seating platforms in the studio theater will offer approximately 100 seats while allowing for 30 feet of stage depth with scrims, and a cross-over lighting grid will allow refined lighting design for performance. These greatly expanded dance facilities will accommodate the School’s growing programs in classical ballet, tap, and modern dance.
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