Sally Magruder

Dancing for 50+ years with a true passion for ballet, Sally has professional experience as a ballet dancer, teacher, and choreographer. Her teaching style offers students of all ages the opportunity to develop an ideal balance of musicality, flexibility, and muscle strength to ensure that the student will enjoy a lifetime of dancing, be that as a career or for personal fulfillment.  Her dance and teaching style truly resonates the quote from Martha Graham, “Dance is the Song of Your Body.”

 

A native of Southern California, Sally continues to study and has received professional training at various conservatories, colleges, dance intensives, and private dance studios across the US.  These include Southland Ballet, DeFore Dance Center, Sun King Dance, Maple Conservatory of Dance, Ballet Pacifica, California Conservatory of Dance, and South County Classical Ballet Conservatory.  She continues to study with Stela Viorica at Southland Ballet and has had the opportunity to study with Kathy Kahn, Melissa Allen Bowman, Maud Wachter, Christopher Hird, Randall Marks, Kathy Sawyer, Pedro Szalay, Charles Maple, Chris Martin, Evette Demarco Swinson, Rosemary McCarter, Steven Inskeep, Diane Diefenderfer, Paul Maure, and Quenby Hersh. From 2004-2017 Sally attended Sun King Dance’s Adult Summer Intensive in Richmond Virginia, Director Heidi Winton-Stahle.

 

Sally is trained in ballet’s Vaganova Method. She has also been exposed to the Cecchetti Method, Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Method, American (or Balanchine) Method. She is a Certified Instructor in the ABT® (American Ballet Theatre) National Training Curriculum and Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT) dance conditioning program.  Prior to joining the staff at Elite Dance Academy in 2017, Sally had been guest teaching ballet technique and pointe for more than 10 years to students of all ages and abilities, notably at Southland Ballet, DeFore Dance Center, Endeavor School of the Arts, San Clemente Dance, and The Studio Cooperative. 

 

Sally has performed numerous featured and soloist roles in classical pieces including Don Quixote, Giselle, La Bayadere, Coppelia, Dance of the Hours, Les Sylphides, and Swan Lake along with repertory and soloist roles in her own and various choreographer’s original contemporary and classical pieces.  A one-time florist and previous owner of 32 Fouettes Dance Skirts, Sally has collaborated on and created costumes and headpieces for numerous local, US, and international repertory pieces along with individual performances and competitions.