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About CDI’s Founder and Director
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“In the classroom, children have to be inside the box, so to speak. I like to think that what we do is create an explosion within the box.”
-Carole Valleskey Founder/Director, CDI |
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Carole Valleskey
In the middle of a successful dancing career, Carole Valleskey saw He Makes Me Want to Dance, about Jacques d'Amboise and the organization he founded, National Dance Institute. She tucked it away in the back of her mind, thinking that this approach to combining the arts and education was not only inspiring, but produced major results that can improve the way students approach challenges throughout their lives.
Biography
Carole Valleskey is currently the Director of the California Dance Institute, an affiliate of Jacques d'Amboise's renowned National Dance Institute, an in-school dance and music program steeped in the belief that the arts help develop life and learning skills. Familiar with the NDI program since 1983, Carole re-connected with founder Jacques d'Amboise in 1998 and worked to bring this acclaimed program to Los Angeles. From 1998-2002, she was Director of Education and Outreach for the Luckman Fine Arts Complex on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles, developing uniquely coordinated hands-on and arts viewing programs for students and teachers. Prior to that she worked with the Music Center Education Division as a teaching artist and writer of their arts study guides Artsource. Ms. Valleskey danced with the Joffrey Ballet from 1976-1991 and was a principal dancer from 1983 on. Receiving national and international notice, her most critically acclaimed roles were as "The Cowgirl" in Agnes deMille's Rodeo, the title role of "Lise" in Sir Frederick Ashton's La Fille Mal Gardee and "The Chosen One" in the re-creation of the1913 Nijinsky-Stravinsky Le Sacre de Printemps. She also danced with Cynthia Gregory & Fernando Bujones, the Basel Ballet in Basel Switzerland, Houston Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre II. Ms. Valleskey was Dance Captain and swing dancer with The Phantom of the Opera from 1991-1995. From 1991 on, she has been active in arts education, performing in schools, as an artist-in-residence in schools for the Music Center Education Division, developing curriculum, and doing teacher in-services in the arts. She has taught and continues to guest teach at Idylwild School of Music and Arts in Idylwild, the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and University of California, Irvine. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Los Angeles in 1997.
"CDI featured in KCET's Life and Times.
See CDI's unique teaching style in action!" | | What does a star dancer for the Joffrey Ballet do after she leaves the stage? Carole Valleskey has found something just as fulfilling as the spotlight.
And fourth-graders at five elementary schools are the lucky beneficiaries.
Val Zavala profiles this hard-driving combination of artist and drill sergeant. |
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