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Emily Villa was raised in Seal Beach, Ca. She has trained with Southland Ballet Academy since she was a teenager. She is currently attending UCI as a dance major. She has danced with Festival Ballet Theatre in various productions, including The Nutcracker, Firebird, Sleeping Beauty and Coppelia.
Nicole Vitale was born in Fountain Valley, Ca. She has danced at Classical Ballet Academy, Southland Ballet Academy and joined The Washington School of Ballet in 2009. She was awarded Second Place in the San Francisco Youth America Grand Prix competition. Vitale has danced in a variety of roles with The Washington Ballet: in Anna Marie Holmes’ Don Quixote, Le Corsaire, Septime Webre’s The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet and Twyla Tharp’s When Push Comes to Shove. Her repertory also includes Balanchine’s Concerto Borocco and Four Temperaments.
Tiffany Yamasaki started her training at Southland Ballet Academy at the age of six. She became a member of FBT II in 2007 and an FBT company member in 2010. Tiffany has participated in many competitions and has performed with Festival Ballet Theatre as a soloist and in corps roles in The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, The Sleeping Beauty and Coppelia. Tiffany currently attends CSU Long Beach, and is in her second year of working towards a dance major degree and a major in kinesiology. Megan Yamashita attends Orange Coast College. She has been at Southland Ballet Academy, under the direction of Salwa Rizkalla, since the age of three. Some of her accomplishments include garnering Second Place in the Junior Division at the 2007 Youth America Grand Prix International Competition in Faenza, Italy; Semifinalist
in classical as well as non-classical dance at the 2008 Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards, with honorable mention in classical dance. Yamashita is also a grand prize winner of 2008 Orange County Performing Arts Center’s “Tomorrow’s Stars at the Center” in classical dance discipline. 2013-2014 FBT TRAINEES
Festival Ballet Theatre is proud to present the members of FBT Trainees, a junior company of student dancers with outstanding potential. Through FBT Trainees, Festival Ballet Theatre secures a talented base of dancers, offers performance opportunities “at home” and nurtures the stars of the future to a professional career in dance.
Front line (left to right): Makaela Wiederin, Megan Ely, Clara Mason, Olivia Harrigan Back line (left to right): Michelle Lemburg, Sydney Danci, Andrea Guite, Laurel Martinez Lex Ishimoto played Billy Elliot on Broadway and is joining us in selected performances as Fritz and Soldier Doll.
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