Rhapsody of Rock: Mann Center
Don’t forget! We have another FREE performance this afternoon at the GAMP (22nd and Ritner). More details here - http://www.therockschool.org/node/286
*Click on photos to enlarge
Our performance at the Mann Center for their Young Peoples’ Concert Series was a complete success! Thank you to the Mann Center for a wonderful venue. We hope everyone and their families will join us next summer!
We’ll have more photos from The Mann Center and this afternoon’s performance at the GAMP in the coming weeks.
The summer fun’s not over yet at The Rock School. We still have our coaching intensive next week, beginning the 9th of August! Click here for more details - http://www.therockschool.org/summer/coaching_intensive
The Final Week
We’re in our final week of our summer intensive program at The Rock School. Check out our final group photos below. *Click to enlarge
Our upper level students, levels 4-6
All of our summer intensive students in our final 2 weeks, levels 2-6
Levels 2-3X
There’s still more to look forward to in our final week.
This morning, we had an exciting performance at the Mann Center as part of their Young Peoples’ Concert Series. There were 7,000 seats filled with children and families from all over the Philadelphia region. We’re just as excited as our followers to post the photos from this morning’s amazing performance. Congratulations to all of our students. Be sure to check out the blog tomorrow for photos!
If you missed our students performance at The Mann Center, you can still catch them for another performance this Friday!
The Rock School has another FREE performance this Friday, August 6th at the GAMP (Girard Academic Music Program) located on 22nd and Ritner. The show is scheduled to go on at 4:30pm, so bring your friends, family and dance lovers!
Don’t forget!
The Rock School still has another week of Coaching Intensive after this week. *Click on the link for more information
Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell was a wonderful addition to The Rock School’s guest faculty for the summer intensive program. He was attentive to all of our students and a pleasure to have at Rock Center in and out of the studio.
At the age of sixteen, Matthew Powell relocated from Shepherdstown, West Virginia to New York City to train on scholarship at the School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet.
After two years of training at SAB, Matthew headed west to dance with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. While dancing with PNB, he performed soloist roles and toured worldwide. In 2001, Matthew joined the Kansas City Ballet, where he danced soloist and principal roles in both classical and contemporary ballets. In addition to dancing, Matthew was a faculty member with the Kansas City Ballet School. He has also taught classes and choreographed ballets for numerous renowned universities, companies, and schools. As a guest artist, he has performed as a solo dancer with the San Francisco Opera with the Metropolitan Ballet of Minneapolis, and with many other companies and schools across the country. In 2006, he was awarded one of five fellowship grants given nationwide from the NewYork Choreographic Institute for the creation of a new work, titled “Resonant Dances.”
In the Summer of 2008, Matthew conceived and directed the Crossroads Ballet Festival a celebration of classical ballet.The festival combined the talents of dancers from nine ballet companies across the globe and played to sold-out houses over the course of two nights in Kansas City. Most recently, Matthew has been cast in the international tour of the classic Arthur Laurents-Stephen Sondheim-Leonard Bernstein musical West Side Story.
Orlando Molina
Orlando Molina taught during the 5th week of our Summer Intensive Program and he quickly became a favorite amongst our students. Mr. Molina is an ABT Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through level 7 and Partnering of the ABT National Training Curriculum. He also received the Outstanding Teacher Award at the 2009 YAGP semi-final in South Carolina.
Mr. Molina has been a guest teacher at different schools including Atlanta Ballet,TCU-Texas, Ohio Dance Theatre, St. Johns River University in Florida, Mississippi Metropolitan Ballet Theatre, Kowa Ballet in Okayama-Japan, and recently he was invited to be a faculty member at the SERBA festival in High Point, NC. Presently, Mr. Molina is a freelance teacher in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Molina would stop the music and make corrections immediately, making sure students could feel what muscles were being used and in what way. After watching students go into passe he had them lay on their stomachs and try stretching their turn out to improve their positions and allow them to feel how it should when standing.
Orlando Molina was born in Guane, Pinar del Rio-Cuba. He began his ballet training at the age of 10 at the Vocational School of Arts where he studied for five years. In 1987, he was accepted into the National Ballet School in Habana. After 3 years he received his Dancer & Teacher Certificate from the Cuban School of Ballet. In 1993, he joined the Ballet Clasico de la Habana (formerly Joven Guardia under the direction of Laura Alonzo).
Mr. Molina competed at the 1998 USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi where he was offered a contract from the renown choreographer and artistic director Denis Nahat to join the Cleveland San Jose Ballet. After two seasons with CSJB, Mr. Molina then joined the Orlando Ballet (formerly Southern Ballet Theatre) under the direction of Fernando Bujones for the 2002-2003 season. He was appointed by Mr. Bujones as Ballet Master of Orlando Ballet. In 2003 Orlando coached Joseph Gatti (Principal Dancer, Boston Ballet) for the YAGP were Mr. Gatti was awarded the Royal Ballet School Scholarship. In 2006 Mr. Orlando coached Joseph Gatti again for the IBC Jackson-MS where Mr. Gatti was awarded the Bronze Medal in the senior division.
In October 2007, Mr. Molina joined Focus Performing Arts Center and Pulse Performing Arts Studio in Orlando, FL as ballet master. He recently coached students to the 2010 NYC YAGP Finals.
Our upper level students enjoyed learning Adagio with Mr. Molina. Enjoy some photos from his classes below. *Click to enlarge
Mr. Molina’s sense of humor helped students remember how difficult a dancer can make it for their partner in adagio if they’re not in the right position.
Mr. Molina is being partnered here by one of his former students, Yosbel Delgado, who is also guest teaching during The Rock School’s summer intensive program.
Yosbel Delgado-Hernandez
Yosbel Delgado has been guest teaching all throughout our six week summer intensive program.
A native of Pinar del Rio - Cuba,Yosbel Delgado-Hernandez began his training at the E.V.A. (vocational school of arts) in his hometown, where he studied ballet for five years. Yosbel’s first professional ballet position was at the Camaguey Ballet in Cuba where he remained for almost two years.At Camaguey’s ballet he performed most of their repertoire including several works by Osvaldo Rivero. After dancing at Camaguey Ballet he was hired to dance at Ballet Nacional de Cuba (Cuban National Ballet) under direction of Alicia Alonso.There he stayed for two years and performed featured roles in many works including:Von Rotbart and the pas de six in Swan Lake, Quixote, toreros and sword dance in Don Quixote among many others.
In the year of 2002 he came to the United States and started studying at the Rock School for dance education until he joined the Pennsylvania Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in the December of the same year. Since then Yosbel has performed numerous featured roles with the Pennsylvania Ballet and they are: the jester in Cinderella, chocolate and sugarplum cavalier in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Spanish dance and other roles in Swan Lake, pas de six in Taming of the Shrew, Dracula and other roles in the Firebird, peasant pas de deux in Giselle, pas de trois in Sleeping Beauty and other participations in The Concert choreographed by Jerone Robbins, Kazimir’s colours by Bigonzetti, Carmina Burana by Mathew Neenan, Five Tangos by Hans van Mannen, Nine Sinatra Songs,Western Symphony, Messiah, Fearful Symmetries,The Four Temperaments, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Carnival of the Animals.
In his first years of ballet training, Yosbel Delgado-Hernandez had Orlando Molina, The Rock School’s guest teacher for week five of the summer intensive program, as one of his very first teachers in the studio. In 1990, Mr. Molina taught Mr. Delgado-Hernandez in their hometown of Pinar del Rio, Cuba. Be sure to check out our next post for photos of Mr. Molina teaching in the studios.
Taylor Stanley visits The Rock School
Former student Taylor Stanley and Rock West Principal Teacher Jennifer Wheat, embrace during a visit to The Rock School during the summer intensive program.
Taylor Stanley has been dancing with The Rock School since the age of three when he began in his hometown of West Chester at Rock West. Stanley joined Rock Center when he enrolled as a Rock Academic Program Alliance (RAPA) student in 2007.
.jpg)
Stanley is now 19 and still working hard as a dancer. In 2008, Stanley was awarded a Merit Scholarship to attend the School of American Ballet where he only studied a year before becoming an apprentice at New York City Ballet in the fall of 2009. We were delighted to have him back in The Rock School’s studios, and are proud to announce that Stanley recently received a contract and will be dancing in the corps de ballet of NYCB.
Bojan Spassoff
The Rock School President and Director Bojan Spassoff teaches a boys class and ballet. 
Bojan Spassoff was a Ford Foundation Scholarship student at the School of American Ballet and was an apprentice with the Harkness Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, and New York City Ballet companies. After becoming a member of the Dutch National Ballet, Mr. Spassoff was among the first foreigners to join the Royal Danish Ballet. Subsequently, he was invited to join American Ballet Theatre and continued his career dancing solo and principal roles with the San Francisco Ballet and teaching for that company and its school. Mr. Spassoff served as Artistic director for both Savannah Ballet and Ballet Oklahoma and their associated schools. He was also guest artist and teacher for numerous regional companies, schools and universities. A former ballet master for Pennsylvania Ballet, he was Associate Director of the New York State Summer School of the Arts, operated in conjunction with New York City Ballet. He has coached gold medalists in presitigious international competitions in Havanna, Moscow and the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, MS, and is a judge for Youth American Grand Prix, and was the primary teacher for TANZOLYMP in Berlin, Germany.
Stephanie Wolf Spassoff
The Rock School director Stephanie Wolf Spassoff teaches pointe and ballet.
An alumna of the School of American Ballet and New York’s Performing Arts High School, Stephanie Wolf Spassoff is a former Pennsylvania Ballet soloist, past member of American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, and Finis Jhung’s New York Chamber Ballet. She was a principal dancer with both Ballet Oklahoma and Savannah Ballet. She was Associate Director of Ballet Oklahoma, Savannah Ballet, and their respective associated schools. Ms. Spassoff has been a guest artist and teacher for many regional companies, schools, and universities and was a permanent faculty member of the New York State Summer School of the Arts. She has coached gold medalists in prestigious international competitions in Moscow and the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, MS and is a judge for Youth America Grand Prix.
Husband and wife, Bojan Spassoff and Stephanie Wolf Spassoff often teach classes together to dedicate more care and attention to individual students. 
Christina Patchell
Christina Patchell is a member of The Rock School staff both at Rock Center and Rock West, but during our year-round program she is primarily at Rock West. Here are some photos of Ms. Patchell getting our students energized in a jazz class during our summer intensive program.
During the regular academic year, Ms. Patchell is also a teacher for The Rock School’s outreach program, RockReach. She is involved in our Residency RockReach program, which offers weekly instruction in a variety of dance forms to schools in and near the Philadelphia metropolitan area.
Here’s a photo of Ms. Patchell teaching a first grade class at Russell Byers Charter School: 
Christina Pastras Patchell was born and raised in Philadelphia. She attended such schools as The Holiday Ballet Theater, The Rock School, Joffery Ballet, Governor’s School for the Arts and The Philadelphia High School for the Performing Arts. Ms. Patchell performed in showswith Will Smith and also performed in Elvis Nights and Somewhere Over Time with Pembrua Productions in Japan. She received her B.F.A. inBallet Education from the University of the Arts. Her choreography was recently featured in the opening for the Kimmel Center as well as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Daniel Ulbricht
Daniel Ulbricht joined The Rock School’s summer intensive guest faculty on Monday and Tuesday during our 4th week of our summer program. Mr. Ulbricht is part of The Rock School’s permanent guest faculty. He is a pleasure to have at Rock Center where students are motivated by his success, hard work and constant encouragement.
Enjoy some photos of Mr. Ulbricht teaching a Boys class, a Mens class, and partnering below. *click to enlarge*
Daniel Ulbricht was born in St. Petersburg, Florida, and began his dance training at the age of 11 at the Judith Lee Johnson Studio of Dance, studying with Lenny Holmes. He also studied at Les Jeunes Danseurs with Javier Dubraq and attended the Chautauqua Summer Dance Program, training with Jean Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride. In 1999, Mr. Ulbricht was invited by the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, to continue his training during their Winter Program. As a student at SAB, Mr. Ulbricht performed with New York City Ballet as a Jester in Peter Martins’ The Sleeping Beauty. In December 2000, he became an apprentice with New York City Ballet and in November 2001 he joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet. In January 2005, Mr. Ulbricht was promoted to the rank of soloist and principal dancer in May 2007.
Since joining New York City Ballet, Mr. Ulbricht has danced featured roles in ballets by George Balanchine, Peter Martins, Jerome Robbins, Richard Tanner and Lynne Taylor Corbett. Mr. Ulbricht is a part of The Rock School’s permanent guest faculty during the summer intensive program.
Choreography Workshop
Last night, Jennifer Wheat, Rock West’s Principal Teacher, taught a choreography workshop for our students housed at Cabrini College at Grace Hall. Ms. Wheat went over the hard work it takes to be a choreographer that entails not only creativity, but an ability to coordinate with a ballet mistress/master, director, costume designer, sound engineer and lighting staff to get a piece just right for a performance.
Whew. Students had the opportunity to create their own choreography to the music of Dance of the Comedians by Bedrich Smetna.
Check out the photos of their unique work below:
Check out more photos from our choreography workshop on The Rock School facebook page.
We’re Halfway Through!
The Rock School Summer Intensive has been zooming by! We can hardly believe we’re already halfway through.
Here are group photos from our second session (weeks 3-4) during our 6 week summer intensive program. *Click to enlarge*
Levels 2-3X
All Levels, 2-6
Levels 4-6
Thank you to all the chaperones and and students that help us organize the chaos of so many people in one photo!
Be sure to keep checking The Rock School facebook page for new photos!
The group photos from our first session (weeks 1 & 2) can also be found the facebook page!
Jennifer Wheat teaching Choreography Workshop at Cabrini College
After classes at Rock Center, students in The Rock School summer intensive get to attend fun-filled events while staying at Cabrini College. Students have had the opportunity to make t-shirts, watch movies, participate in various tournaments and tonight, Jennifer Wheat, Rock West’s Principal Teacher will be leading a choreography workshop.
Jennifer Wheat is originally from Michigan, where she trained with the Contemporary Civic Ballet of Michigan. She’s also trained with Boston Ballet and the School of Pennsylvania Ballet where she was a scholarship student. In 1981, after a car accident ended her ballet career, she switched to jazz and trained with The Hubbard Street Dance Company. Jennifer also danced professionally with Astral Theatrical Dance Company and Dance Fusion.
Ms. Wheat is a fun-loving teacher that brightens a room wherever she enters. We feel lucky to have such an outstanding teacher and choreographer on our staff.
Jazz with Cheryl Carson
Ms. Carson graduated from the University of the Arts and has been an active member of the Philadelphia dance community for 14 years. She was formerly the company manager at Koresh Dance Company where she also taught as an instructor. Carson began working at The Rock School this past fall as the program manager. She’s been a wonderful addition to The Rock School faculty and we’re looking forward to sitting in more of her classes.
