Laguna Dance

MANAGEMENT

CEO/Executive Director

Jodie Gates

CEO/Executive Director Experience

Gates is formerly a principal ballerina with the Joffrey Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, as well as a principal guest artist with several companies around the world. Her guest appearances include a gala at The Maryinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Benois de la Danse in Moscow, dancing Odette/Odile with Fernando Bujones in Swan Lake at the Ballet de Monterrey, Mexico, to appearing in well-known festivals such as Spoleto in Italy, The Edinburgh Festival, the Nijinsky Festival in Hamburg, Germany, and The Melbourne Festival in Australia. When Jodie retired her slippers at the age of 40, a new life awaited. Her second career was as impressive as her first. Since 2005, Jodie has choreographed over 60 ballets created for Germany’s Staatsballett Berlin, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, American Ballet Theater II, Washington Ballet, and The Juilliard School, just to name a few. Her work has been performed around the world, including the Kennedy Center, Princeton University, the Helsinki International Ballet Competition, the Vail International Dance Festival, and many other venues. Jodie also taught, staged, and produced a number of ballets for William Forsythe, including productions at Prague National Theater, Zurich Opera Ballet, Teatro La Scala, Paris Opera Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Pennsylvania Ballet. In 2006, Jodie took these skills and talents to teach as a tenured professor at University of California, Irvine and, in 2013, was chosen to lead the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at the University of Southern California. “The opportunity to launch a new school at USC – the first school to be endowed in over 40 years – was the chance of a lifetime. I wasn’t looking to leave UCI. I was recruited to do something that very few people would ever have the good fortune to do – to create a curriculum from the ground up, to build a staff and faculty, and to recruit students. I am able to show them the value of a fine arts degree in dance.” In June 2021, she was awarded a distinguished Fellowship from The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. Her Fellowship acknowledges her most recent work as facilitator for the Artistic Directors Coalition for Ballet in America, a group of artistic leaders who are addressing systemic racism and inequities within the culture of ballet. She has led conversations with artistic leaders in the classical ballet and contemporary dance fields, and is working with the organization, The International Association of Blacks in Dance, to build broader diversity and greater equity in the dance field. To the residents of Laguna Beach, Jodie’s most recognizable contribution might be the founding of the Laguna Dance Festival in 2005. The Laguna Dance Festival’s repertoire spans modern, contemporary, classic ballet, and full-length ballet.

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