Jacqueline Calle to Conduct Master Dance Classes
St. Johnsbury Academy is pleased to welcome internationally acclaimed dancer and educator, Jacqueline Calle to campus for a week of master teaching. Ms. Calle will be conducting classes for St JA dance students March 17-21, 2025.
Ms. Calle comes to St. JA from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City where she is a member of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company. She was hand-selected to tour with Russian ballet star, Natalia Osipova for her acclaimed “ISADORA” tour. Ms. Calle has danced in Arthur Pita’s production of “The Tenant.” Ms. Calle was selected by the original Merce Cunningham cast of “August Pace” to dance in a special re-construction of this famed ballet.
As a performer and educator, Ms. Calle has worked with The Henry Jurens Foundation (Amsterdam), Cie Marchepied (Lausanne), Share (Berlin), and The American Center for Art and Culture (Paris). She has performed works by Bill T. Jones, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Kim Brandstrup, Vladimir Varnava, Alexandre Beller, Rachel Thorne Germond, Guanglei Hui, and Belinda McGuire among others. She is a trainee with The Mindleaps Program in Kigali, Rwanda. In addition to offering workshops at various US universities, Ms. Calle serves on the faculty of the South Carolina Governor’s School of the Arts and Humanities where she teaches the Martha Graham Technique and Ballet. Ms. Calle is a graduate of SUNY/Purchase where she majored in Dance and was trained in the Martha Graham Technique and Ballet.
Ms. Calle continues the St. Johnsbury Academy’s tradition of hosting top-tier visiting artists since 2001. St Johnsbury Academy guest master teachers in dance have included internationally esteemed principal dancers from the companies of Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, MOMIX, American Ballet Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Theatre, Jose Limon, Pascal Rioult, Atlanta Ballet, etc. Dance Department guests have also included internationally recognized dance scholars, history professors, and established dance reviewers on faculty and staff at the New York Times, DANCE Magazine, Juilliard, The Hartt School, Harvard-Columbia-Brown Universities, Vassar College, and The London School of Economics. St. JA’s dance guest list is an impressive record of St JA’s dedication to exploring dance beyond the studio and its commitment to providing students with authentic, top-tier standards and professionals in the field of dance.
Marianne Handy Hraibi, dance instructor and originator of the St JA Dance Offering, states that her goal is to train students to be knowledgeably disciplined in dance. She also wants them to be knowledgeable and astute audience members. Hraibi insists, “Both goals come from exposure to expert training, especially exposure to the nuances that make good dancing great. It is not enough to provide professional training. Our students need to be exposed to the fine subtleties that distinguish great performing artists.
Dance is far more than simply movement and/or warm bodies in motion. For dance to exist as art, dance demands and depends upon fine details of clean and deliberate body usage, usage held to a standard that includes finessed texture, timing, phrasing, and suspension. These are critical elements that create depth, musicality, and mastery. These are the sensibilities that distinguish dance as art, not simply busy work.
Under my direction, St JA dancers are coached to understand the mechanics of dance and the fine tuning that distinguishes dance from the pedestrian to dance as art. Our guest teachers embody dance at an elite professional level. I am grateful that my active participation in classes at top NYC professional studios allows me to remain current and interactive with today’s top-tier dancers. It is through my exchanges in NYC studios that my connections are made. These connections ultimately benefit our St JA dance students. The Academy and I have worked hard to design a Dance program that is committed to providing expert professional training to its students. Our students deserve to be exposed to the best. This is our commitment and our promise.”
Guest artists in dance are made possible through donations to the Ned and Sarah Handy Fund for Dance at St. Johnsbury Academy.
