CHAMPAIGN BALLET ACADEMY
Deanna Doty Warfel, Champaign Ballet Academy Director
2810 West Clark Road, Champaign, IL 61822
While some CBA students go on to professional careers in ballet, most students are here for the fun, the challenge, and the reward of an inspired ballet experience. CBA dancers excel academically and professionally due in part to their CBA training. Focus, drive, discipline, and commitment learned at CBA transfer to other activities. We take great pride in producing confident, passionate, accomplished graduates. Leadership plays a vital role at CBA, as older dancers nurture and inspire younger ones. Many opportunities arise in this atmosphere, and each dancer is encouraged to discover his/her unique potential - whether their talent lies in dancing, teaching, coaching, choreographing or costuming! At CBA, we enjoy developing the whole person: body, mind and spirit.
The Academy is directed by Deanna Doty Warfel, who founded CBA in 1998. Professionally trained and experienced, Deanna has built a successful school because of her deep respect for her students and her unique ability to impart on them the benefits of skilled training. She ensures that all instructors at CBA share her commitment to meeting the individual needs of each student.
The teaching method used at the academy is based on the Russian Vaganova Syllabus, with influences from Cecchetti and Bournonville techniques as well. The technique is tailored to each individual body, enabling the academy to produce dancers with clean technique and pure academic lines. Speed, strength, and fluidity are increased slowly over the years to ensure proper alignment, muscle and ligament preparedness, and injury prevention. Older dancers are encouraged to explore different techniques and forms of dance. At around the age of 13, many students choose to expand their horizons during the summer when they are accepted to various ballet programs around the United States.
CBA students have been awarded scholarships to American Ballet Theatre, School of American Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Ballet Internationale, Ballet Chicago, Ballet Met, Salt Creek Ballet, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, The Harid Conservatory, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. Alumni have gone on to dance with the Atlanta Ballet, the Milwaukee Ballet, Ballet Met, Butler Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, National Ballet of Canada, David Taylor Dance Theatre, Ballet Memphis, Louisville Ballet, Lexington Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater, and Tulsa Ballet.
Graduates of CBA have also moved on academically to such schools as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, Wellesley, Rhode Island School of Design, Butler University, and the University of Illinois, studying diverse areas such as materials engineering, pre-med, physical therapy, animation, and more. We celebrate the success of all of our students and each of their unique talents!