Melissa Stafford, PCYB Principal, Ballet/Enrollment Division
Melissa Stafford studied ballet with Marcia Dale Weary at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB) in Carlisle, PA. She also spent four years as a student teacher at CPYB under Weary’s guidance and worked as a substitute teacher for the Pre-Ballet program under Anna Marie Rabassi-Davis. After teaching for a children’s dance program at Houghton College (where she earned a B.A. in Psychology), Stafford joined the ballet faculty of Peabody Dance in Baltimore, MD, in 2001. With Artistic Advisor Barbara Weisberger and Artistic Director Carol Bartlett, Stafford helped revise the Peabody Dance ballet curriculum, and was appointed full-time faculty in 2002 and Ballet Program Coordinator in 2005. She also taught part-time in the Goucher College Dance Department and remained on the CPYB Summer Ballet Program faculty during this time. Stafford joined the Patel Conservatory as Ballet Principal in August 2006. In addition to her teaching credits, Stafford has choreographed several original works for ballet students that have been performed in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, and received the 1999 RDA/Northeast Region Monticello Award for emerging female choreographers.