Our Approach

Classical Foundation, Contemporary Education, Care You Deserve

As an active member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the School of BNC serves more than 300 students per year and is committed to every student regardless of age, ability, aspiration, or socio-economic status. In 1998, BNC became the second of two Certified Community Schools of the Arts in the state of Colorado.

Under the guidance of Julia Wilkinson Manley since 2002, the school is highly respected for providing a nurturing and professional environment for students from pre-school through adult. BNC students regularly win top honors at area ballet competitions and gain entry into some of the nation’s most respected college dance programs and summer intensives. BNC provides its students with high-quality performance experiences that include a year-end Gala performance and BNC’s annual production of The Nutcracker, which brings students together with the professional company. The school’s Student Company gives upper level students a pre-professional company experience that includes community education performances and culminates in an annual production at the end of each school year. The School of BNC also provides a summer intensive program and summer classes.

BNC has developed its own teaching syllabus. Our syllabus is based on a mixture of the English RAD system, the Italian Cecchetti method, and the French system (the first syllabus made for ballet). We teach a “neutral” technique that builds a great deal of strength and versatility, so that our student dancers will be able to adapt to any diversity they encounter in the professional dance world. In our more advanced levels, students study Pilates, Modern dance, Jazz, and Composition (another word for choreography), as well as their regular ballet and pointe classes. These classes work together to build kinesthetically healthy, diverse dancers.