City Youth Ballet - Johnson City, TN

Marvin Askew

Executive Director of Buffalo City Ballet

Marvin began his training under the tutelage of Karl Singletary, founder of the Buffalo Inner City Ballet Training School. He has won numerous scholarships from prestigious institutions, such as, the American Ballet Theater, The New York City Ballet, and the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater.

A former member of Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Maryland Ballet, and Capital Ballet, Mr. Askew has appeared as guest artist with many regional companies, including the Empire State Ballet, the Buffalo Ballet Theater, Lake Superior Ballet, Johnson City Ballet, Florence Ballet, Gemini Dance, American Academy of Ballet, La Roche College, Ithaca Ballet, Rochester City Ballet, Dance Street West Ballet of Los Angeles, and the Chicago Ballet under Ruth Page & Larry Long.

As the Executive Director of the Buffalo City Ballet, as well as director and instructor at its training school, Marvin was awarded a choreographer’s grant from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program to create several works for the company. He had the honor to represent Buffalo in 1994 at the National Medal of Arts Award Ceremony hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts and held at the White House under President Clinton. In the year 2000, he was inducted into the Western New York Dance Hall of Fame for his outstanding work with children through dance.

Heather Maloy

Artistic Director, Resident Choreographer and Dancer

Heather began her career as a choreographer shortly after joining the North Carolina Dance Theatre as a dancer in 1989. Sensing her potential, Salvatore Aiello gave her the amazing opportunity to create an original work for the company when she was only nineteen, propelling her as a talented up and coming choreographer. Since then she has been given the opportunity to create ballets for many incredible dancers, including artists of such stature as Mel A. Tomlinson who commissioned her to create a solo for himself. She has created five more pieces for NCDT who brought her work, Couch Potatoes, to the Joyce Theatre in New York City, where it was received with great success. Along with her success at NCDT, Ms. Maloy created two premieres for the Chautauqua Ballet and three ballets for the Nashville Ballet. Ms. Maloy danced as a soloist with NCDT for thirteen years and has made guest appearances with Ballet Met, the Moving Poets and Tampa Ballet.

Norbert Nirewicz

Free Lance Dancer, Teacher, and Choreographer

A native of Poland Norbert began his ballet studies at the National Ballet School in Gdansk. He was a finalist in Poland’s national Ballet Competition in 1993 and obtained a silver medal in the same competition in 1995. As a Dancer for the Polish National Theater he portrayed roles in a variety of classical ballets such as “Swan Lake”,”Giselle”,”Sleeping Baeuty” and “La Fille Mal Gardee” in Warsaw and throughout Europe. In 1997 Mr. Nirewicz joined Ballet Classico de Camara in Venezuela, as a Principal Dancer adding “La Bayadere”, “Le Corsaire” and many more to his repertoire. After Mr. Nirewicz competed at the 1998 US International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi, he was offered a contract to join Cleveland/San Jose Ballet. He performed with the company for two seasons in Nahat’s “Blue Suede Shoes” and Roland Petit’s “Carmen” garnering public and critical acclaim. In the Summer of 2000 Norbert competed in New York International Ballet Competition where he was a finalist. After two seasons with Cleveland/San Jose Ballet Mr. Nirewicz joined Columbia City Ballet with a Principal contract where he performed in “Don Quixote” and “Dracula” among the others.

Olena Safonova

Ukrainian National Ballet

Ms. Safonova entered the State School of Choreography in the former Soviet Ukraine in 1975, and upon graduation in 1981 was selected for the ballet company of the Ukrainian National Theatre of Opera and Ballet. While in the company of the Theatre, Ms. Safonova performed in Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Giselle, Cinderella, Spartacus, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, and other classical and contemporary ballets.

From 1981-1995 she toured extensively in Eastern and Western Europe, Canada, and the United States. In 1995, she moved to Egypt where she performed and taught at Cairo’s Theatre of Opera and Ballet. In 1997, Ms. Safonova organized and ran the children’s ballet school at Cairo’s Russian Center. She returned to Kiev in 2002 and rejoined the Ukrainian National Theatre.

From 2002 until the present, she has continued her teaching career with Kiev’s Academy of Ballet and her performance career with the National Theatre. In February, 2006, Ms. Safonova visited the Johnson City Ballet Company where she taught group and private lessons for four weeks.

Ms. Safonova resides in Kiev with her husband, son, and giant boar hound, Baby.

Jennifer Wheat

Rock School

Jennifer Wheat, originally from Michigan, trained with the Contemporary Civic Ballet Company and was a scholarship student and graduate of The School of the Pennsylvania Ballet where she studied under the direction of Lupe Serrono. Ms. Wheat was also on scholarship with The Boston Ballet summer program with Violette Verdy and Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet School.

Jennifer studied Jazz at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia and The Lou Conte School of Dance in Chicago where she was an apprentice with the Hubbard Street Dance Company. Returning to Philadelphia, she became a company member of Astral Theatrical Dance Company, Philadanco and a guest performer with Dancefusion. Ms. Wheat has been on faculty for The Maywood Academy of Dance, The Pennsylvania Centre for Ballet, The Gwendolyn Bye Dance Center where she worked with Jacque d’Ambroise and The National Dance Institute.

In 1985 she became the Founding Director/choreographer for Fusion2 Dance Company, a training ground for young dancers. She has guest taught/choreographed for The University of Pennsylvania, The Johnson City Ballet Company and Florida’s Atlantic Arts Academy.

Currently Jennifer is the Principal Ballet teacher for The Rock School West, Ballet Mistress for The West Chester Dance Theatre and on faculty for the Rock school for Dance Education since 1996.