Ryan is from Carson City, Nevada. At the age of 11, after seeing a performance of the American Ballet Theater’s Second Company, ABT II, he made the decision to become a professional ballet dancer. His parents agreed that he could move out on his own to pursue his ballet career after he graduated from high school, earned his Boy Scout Eagle Scout rank, and earned his Citation Award for the AWANA religious program. He accomplished these goals when he was 14. It was decided that he delay another year while he finished his associate of science degree at Western Nevada College and completed his apprenticeship at Sierra Nevada Ballet under the mentorship of Rosine Bena. A month before he turned 16, he left his family in Nevada and moved to San Jose, where he had been awarded the Carreùo Male Dancer Training Initiative Scholarship. He has trained in San Jose for the last two years and recently represented the New Ballet School in the finals for the Youth American Grand Prix competition.

61